Spain, a 2 week tour by car
 

Hello all, I joined this site because I am planning a trip with 3 other people ( my husband and another couple) to Spain next May. My husband and I went on a cruise out of the port of Barcelona last spring and loved the city. Our friends have always wanted to visit Spain also, hence this trip. We would like to do a 2 week driving tour, round trip Barcelona. Must sees include the Basque country, Andorra and Valencia. Would like to visit Madrid but not sure if we can fit that in. We have looked a little bit at some sites, know we need the international driving permit, but have about a million questions about all the rest. Car rental seems confusing, don't know where to go with that. After looking at some posts on this site, it seems we should not try to cram too much into this 2 weeks. Looking for any thoughts. I appreciate any information, thank you!

A car is a real burden in the cities. So do not rent one while in Barcelona.

Take a look at a map, I would skip Valencia this trip. Please note Andorra is better to visit in theory than in actuality but you could see some of Catalunya and then head to Basque Country.

Sorry, I have rented a number of times, so please be specific about your questions as have many others here. You do not need an interantional license to rent but the police can be a pain if you do not have one.

Sorry, I guess my questions are too broad. Really wanted to know if going from Barcelona to Basque country, then down to Valencia and back to Barcelona was something that could be done in 2 weeks in a realistic fashion. We would not rent a car til ready to leave Barcelona, and then get rid of it upon arriving back there. Looked at train schedules, but it seemed that the trains did not go everywhere we wanted to, and you needed reservations ahead of time, which would take away from any spontaneous activity. I guess we will have to arm ourselves with a good atlas and have a realistic idea of distances so we can travel freely. Maybe kind of a crazy idea?

I have never driven from Valencia to Pays Basque. But one intinerary would be to fly from Barcelona to San Sebastian/Donostia and then drive through Pays Basque and then head to Valencia staying one night along the route.

There are many Basques on this board and one poster from Valencia who will offer better advice.

If you drove BCN to say Bilbao and onto Valencia back to BCN it is something like 1600km (just under 1000miles) divide that by 14 days equals 114 km per day. I have not deducted times you need to rest or for jetlag or for times you are staying in BCN. All of this is on Autovias (highways)
Seeing the above sums I would strongly suggest that you sit down and do some more planning. Because with the present ideas I doubt if you will see much.

Not a bad idea to rent a car and drive from Barcelona to the Basque Country. I would make the drive a part of the journey, the Pyrenees are beautiful, perhaps stay overnight in Torla at the foot of spectacular Monte Perdido. I would have done 3 nights in Barcelona, 2 days driving through the Pyrenees, 5-6 days in the Basque Country and three nights in Valencia.

In the Basque Country, don't miss out on marvellous San Sebastián with, among other things, the best food in the world. A food-crazy town, and just walking into any bar to sample the so called pintxos (Basque tapas) can be highly addictive. Several small and charming villages along the coast between San Sebastián and vibrant Bilbao about one hour away. You can fly from Bilbao to Valencia with very affordable Spanair. And if you want to go directly from Barcelona to the Basque Country, Vueling take you there for some 30-40€ in little more than an hour.

Here are some further inspirations for the places along your route:

The article "A different kind of Spain" gives you an idea of San Sebastián and the region: http://marshlands.blogstream.com/
"There is dining that features more Michelin starred restaurants per mile than Paris, New York, or Vienna. There is a culture brought Woody Allen to the city’s Film Festival last year, brings Herbie Hancock and Bob Dylan to this summer’s Jazz Fest, and embraces Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum just down the coast in Bilbao. There is the zest for life that drew Ernest Hemingway to nearby Pamplona and was immortalized in The Sun Also Rises."

Ferran Adrià (El Bulli) suggests that San Sebastián is the best place to eat in the world "in terms of the average quality of the food, in terms of what you can get at any place you happen to walk into".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandsty...rink.shopping2

If you go to Bilbao, I suggest you visit the oldest café in town, Café Boulevard. It was closed down to great public protests in 2006 after 135 years of history, but it reopened this spring. This 10 min documentary about the last day before closing speaks volumes of the café and its significance as well as of the bilbainos themselves: http://www.vimeo.com/2690209

And who wouldn't go to Valencia after seing this video from the city's Mercado Central:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds8ryWd5aFw

Thank you all for your comments. We will certainly look harder at our itinerary. Appreciate the feedback, We want to have enough time to slow down and see the sights. Haven't thought about flying within the country. We did think the coast between Valencia and Barcelona looked interesting, and driving would let us see it as we wished. Thanks again, and any further commentary is welcome.

With only 2 weeks I'd cut out Valencia. Barcelona deserves at least 4 nights itself, and more if you want to do daytrips (Montserrat, Girona, Tarragona, etc....). I'd fly from Barcelona to Bilbao or San Sebastian, rent a car, then spend at least a week in the Basque Country. Depending on your itinerary and how many places you want to visit in the Basque country and daytrips in the Barcelona area you may even want to fly back to Barcelona.

Maribel's guides are excellent for these areas:
http://maribelsguides.com/

tequilamary, I think I just found your trip thread. :-)

kimhe and Cathy M...great suggestions. I am trying to piece together the beginnings of just such a trip in my own mind, and your suggestions are very helpful.

Have you considered an open jaw flight? This certainly would save you time in the long run.

The COAST between Barcelona and Valencia is not the most interesting in Spain. I thought you might be interested in the CITY of Valencia. Peñiscola, however, does make a nice half-way stop from here to there.

I also agree that flying the longest portion of the trip may be wise, unless someone can suggest an interesting historic/scenic itinerary between BCN and Bilbao/SS.

Do take a look at the parador system.. www.parador.es and their 5 night card.

You may want to look at the UNESCO World Heritage Site for ideas of what not to miss along the way. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list

This building in Valencia is a must see if you come this way

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/782

here is a flashy marketing video

http://preview.tinyurl.com/39tonke

I think you do have time to discover additional portions of other regions of Spain in two weeks if that ids what you want to do. You could also leave a few days open at the end so you can make that decision part way through the trip.

So..a few nights Barcelona.
Fly to Bilbao/SS. Visit that area 4-5 nights with car..then slowly work yourselves through the wine country, (2 nights?), .. you are now about 6 hours from Valencia and you still have 4-5 nights left.

You can stop somewhere along the way. Depending on the route you take, or what interests you the most, I will try to find some places I can recommend. I don't have a map nearby right now! But a really interesting Parador not far from Guadalajara is Siguenza. It is east of Madrid after Alcalá de Henares, another World Heritage site.

Two nights in Valencia should be fine.
You can leave the car here, as the train ( 3-3.5 hrs) is excellent and does get close to the coast at one point for awhile, or drive up making a nice stop at Peñiscola, weather permitting.

Is there any particular reason you want to go to Andorra? There are many mountain areas that would be less commercial that would give you a more interesting first impression, I think.

Of course, if you DO detour to the mountains or the beautiful Costa Brava, Valencia is too far south to be convenient on this trip..

Sometimes all this planning can be overwhelming. Wherever you go you will not be disappointed!

Hey everyone, thanks for the replies. Lincasanova, we thought that the coast between Valencia and Barcelona looked interesting...but that was just looking at a map! Guess we were wrong! Glad for your input. We wanted to go to Valencia mostly because one of our group has a friend whose sister works at a horse ranch there. We are horse lovers but cannot make it all the way to Andalusia this time! We wanted to go to Andorra (probably just a drive THROUGH it, not staying there ) just because it seemed like a unique destination, a place no one we know goes to.

You are right, it is rather overwhelming to think about this. Our brief experience in Barcelona last April really whetted our appetite to go back.

We are all in our mid fifties to mid sixties, but quite active if I say so myself. We want to work out a skeleton of an itinerary, but have some freedom to change it along the way.

In looking at the mileage of our original plan, it is a long way; we figured that some days we would not drive at all, or very short jaunts around a certain area...and then some days we would have to "just drive" to get to the next destination.

Have read a little about the paradors, will check the link further.

It also seems to me that we need to know more about the Valencia area and decide if it is worth going that far south. Maybe staying more in the north and northeast will be in order. There was a lot we did not see in Barcelona.

I have a lot to think about now. So glad I joined this site, and again thank you all for the information. Might be able to actually plan a workable trip!!

Mary

We did a similar trip last November .. we have a trip report posted. We flew into BCN .. taxi'd to the hotel, spent a few days, taxi'd back to the airport to pick up our car .. very easy, and less expensive than parking in the city and paying those extra days of rental. The hotel arranged a taxi van for us from the hotel because we were 5 people. (3 adults, 2 kids). We rented from National, a minvan that seats 7, but 5 comfortably with room in the back for luggage, automatic (we can drive a standard, but with a lot of mountain travel, we just wanted it to be easy). Just a few thoughts to ponder.

Alexis, thank you so much, I printed out your trip report so my group can read it. I still have to finish it myself! We figured on doing what you did as far as the car rental--would not pick up the car til ready to leave. By the way, it was so funny---my husband and I saw the same naked, lean, hairless man on a bike during our stroll down Las Ramblas last April!! It was too much!! Thanks for your help, I am going to read more of what you have posted!

Re. coast between Valencia and Barcelona

Unfortunately, the only truly interesting part is more or less halway between both cities, i.e. the southernmost bit of Catalunya. lincasanova already mentioned Peñiscola.
A bit north of that, you will find the stunning Ebro delta with huge rice fields and endless beaches with hardly any people. If you google Ebro Delta you will get some impressions. Depending on time of year, this should be a #1 spot for bird spotters.
Further north from there there are a few resorts, nothing extremely tempting to visit.

But IF you still have time you could go upstream the Ebro via Tortosa, slight detour to the NW to Horta de Sant Joan (Picasso museum, picture postcard village), further NE following the Ebro to Miravet (templar castle), Corbera (Civil War memorial village). Then you need a good map to get via Prades (another picture postcard village) to Poblet (near Montblanc) to visit the beautiful abbey.
Back to the coast on AP-2 to AP-7 towards Barcelona.

When you look at Google maps, you will notice that some motorways are in yellow, and some in orange. The orange-colored sections are tolled - and in Catalunya it's not just a few cents here and there.. it can be a substantial amount, e.g. around €35 from Valencia to Barcelona (if you decided to stay on the motorway AP-7 all the way).

While in other regions, you can often bypass the costly tolled sections of motorways, there is no real alternative between Valencia and the Ebro delta. The parallel N-340 is an extra wide 2-lane highway, but usually packed with trucks trying to avoid the toll. So the feeling to drive the N-340 not exactly like the Pacific Coast Highway :-)

The Costa Brava would be a better coast to drive along with some stretches up north, which I cannot give you much advice, but it IS nice and I have been to some quaint villages there.

So, your friend's sister works on a horse farm.. in Valencia.. would love to know which one as I used to have a horse and do know quite a few of the horse people around here! That would be a coincidence!

Valencia does have quite a nice historic area which is very large and intact. The Albufera spring lake is a nice site with some nice restaurants along it.

To make things easier I have copied a quick post about valencia from last year that has a few websites for you!

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...e-to-visit.cfm

Thank you cowboy 1968 and lincasanova, we have to look at all this, will take your comments and look at the maps and google and web posts. We thought that most coasts are merely beautiful in themselves!! Maybe not? Is there anywhere else except Andalusia to see beautiful horses? Thanks for all the advice!

The coast above barcelona and south of valencia are more scenic. The beaches along the coast north of Valencia are very "deep" and do not have many cliffs or hills or coves. There are a few but nothing spectacular from the road.

Not sure where you would see beautiful horses. Maybe google "yeguadas" ( horse farms).. but outside if passing by some grazing horses in the north or south, the show at jerez is about the best way to see highly trained animals. Most other horses are stabled. Especially the gorgeous stallions.

P.S.
In the region of Valencia, some 45min away by car, I found the small town of Xàtiva with its castle very impressive. Not only the structure of the castle which is squeezed on the top ridge of the mountain, but also the stunning view from up there. But it's probably a bit off your route..
www.xativaturismo.com

Thank you. We need to do more looking at the websites.