Hello !

I am currently planning a Europe trip for next July and I was looking at spending approx 10 - 12 nights in Spain on my way through from Portugal to Italy.

The itinerary is currently looking like this:
(travelling from Lagos, Portugal)
- 2 nights in Seville
- 2 nights in Granada
- 3 nights in Madrid
- 4 nights in Barcelona
(Travelling on to Rome, Italy)

Ive never been to Spain before and keen to soak up as much of the culture as I can! I am someone who can fit a lot in my day but also sometimes get overly excited when I plan things and try to fit too much into the Itinerary. Would love to get others input on whether I should be spending more or less days somewhere or if there is somewhere else in Spain I should be making time for.

Thanking you!

I think you need at least 4 nights for Seville. It's a beautiful city with lots of wonderful historical and cultural sites. Barcelona could use an extra night or two but 4 nights isn't bad. You don't have Cordoba on your itinerary which is a wonderful city that boasts the amazing Mezquita. It would be a shame to go to Andalusia and omit Cordoba. Perhaps you could visit Cordoba as a day trip from Seville if you have 4 nights in Seville. But in order to add 2 nights to Seville, you have to omit something else. Either Madrid or Barcelona. I love both cities but I don't see how you can visit them both unless you stay with your current itinerary. Which will give you a very brief taste of Seville.

I want to caution you, however, about the temperatures in Andalusia in July. It will be very, very hot!!! Such as temps in the 100's or high 90's. We visited Andalusia from mid-September to very early October. Temps were typically in the 80's, which is fine with us, but in the low to mid 90's in Seville at the very end of September. I have read trip reports from people who were in Andalusia during the summer months, and they wrote about being drenched in sweat after 10 minutes. If you visit Andalusia in July, plan on getting a hotel with a pool, and do your sightseeing in the morning and evening.

Agree that you need more time in Seville. We had four nights, and could have used a few more. And there's no way I'd visit Spain in July. We were there in late October and nearly died from the heat and humidity.

Ditto to what KarenWoo and Melnq8 have told you about Seville and the summer heat. In July you can have several days running of temperatures in the 90s-100s, and on July 31 last year it reached 106 F. It is scorchingly hot. Andalucia is heating up!
Even in early November this year the high in the Seville province reached 86 F.

Just be prepared for intense heat---meaning getting a very early start to your sightseeing, duck into the cooler temperatures of Seville's many Baroque churches while walking around, choose lodging with a pool and strong a/c, stop often for refreshing drinks (granizados, for example), retreat to that lodging after lunch and rest until the evening, when the locals decide to come out and have a very late dinner.

All this will limit your number of hours for touring, which is why we now, through experience, avoid all of Andalucía between May and September and head north instead. But if July is your only possible opportunity for your visit, just take it slow and lower your expectations of what you can accomplish sightseeing-wise.

As Karen notes, if you stick with your Andalucía itinerary heading east from Lagos, Algarve, (and it may not be feasible for you to change your dates), I would add 2 nights in Seville at an absolute minimum, but... to do that, if you think you can make a future trip to Spain, I'd save Barcelona for another trip and fly to Rome from Madrid, which unfortunately will also be scorchingly hot in July. (We end our summer vacations in Madrid every year in late July, so learned from experience).
Again, just a cautionary tale about the heat.

Thank you all for the tips! I will be coming from Australia so unfortunately June/July is the only period I can get off for work, but thank you for the heads up regarding the heat, I will see how I can cater my site seeing to reflect this!

I would eliminate one stop, and presume you'll be back one day--and Madrid will be the place you will most likely pass through in the future. Or eliminate Barcelona for the same reasons--I would do whatever works out better with the transport you have scoped out.

That's a lot of ground to cover in 10-12 nights. How are you getting around Spain and going from Spain to Italy (train, plane, or car)? That would make some difference. I would be tempted to slice a day off Barcelona, or skip Madrid on this trip, and add that time to Seville as Karen suggested (allowing a possible daytrip to Cordoba). You don't really have time to see it all, and I'm afraid that 2 nights in Seville and 2 in Granada pretty much mean just one day in each of those cities. However, given the time of year you are traveling, perhaps you want to spend more time in Barcelona and less in the interior; or perhaps you are planning on spending a lot of time in the air conditioning at the Prado and other museums in Madrid. I can't imagine Andalusia in July being nearly as much fun as it is in shoulder season. Definitely some tradeoffs involved.

We spent 3 weeks in Spain in 2015 and I think your itinerary is pretty good for the time you have available. Can't comment on the heat, we went in September, but I can tell you that it was awfully dry.
How are you getting around? Spain is big and you'll use a day to get from one of these cities to the next. Given that, and I would also add a day in Seville, you definitely should consider dropping Madrid from the trip. Although it's the capital I thought the best part was the Prado art museum. And there are other art museums.