Spain & Portugal for a month
 

Need some help with our itinerary for our "bucket list" trip to Spain & Portugal in May. We are flying into Madrid and renting a car to tour after 4 days in Madrid. We love museums, food and history! We are in our 60s buy relatively active. I do love flamenco so I would like to see some. Not into Wine at all and live at the beach in Mexico so hanging out at the beach won't be happening! Suggestions? We will be continuing on to England after Madrid. Any suggestions?

A month will go VERY quickly in this part of the world. You will NOT be able to see all the highlights in that time, and so will need to be selective. Here's what I recommend: Get some good guidebooks (or spend some time with a few in your local library), identify the things you most want to see in each location, check their opening/closing times on the internet, and mark them on a calendar. Then pencil in your transportation, add some time on either side (for getting to/from your lodging, checking in/out, packing/unpacking, getting lost/oriented, etc.). As you plan, note that many things in Spain are closed on Monday, and often for all or part of Sundays too; and many things in Spain will also be closed daily for a very long mid-day break.

BTW, if you love museums, 4 days would, IMO, be a bare minimum for Madrid.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you are continuing on to England after Madrid. If you haven't already done so, please check your options for "open jaw" flights -- into one city and out of another, found on flight search engines under the "multi-city" option. They rarely cost more than round trips into and out of the same city, particularly when you consider the cost (in dollars and time) of backtracking.

Hope that helps!

I suggest you do not take a car in Madrid, it is a chaotic city, with a lot of traffic and little parking, and public transport is very good, the main thing to see can be done walking. Flamenco in Madrid is difficult, because it is typical of the southern part of Spain.

Although flamenco was not always readily available in Madrid, I believe you can now find excellent performances at some venues. A Fodorite named kimhe used to post regularly on venues. You might go to google and use the search terms "Fodor's" "flamenco" "Madrid" and "kimhe" to see what you turn up.

Although I have not seen his name on Fodor's for a while there is a poster named Kimhe, who as noted above, who is a flamenco expert and knows who is appearing where.

We find a rental car facility on the periphery of a city like Madrid, so we do not have navigate the city. The trains and buses in Spain are excellent and reliable, so you should consider them for intercity transit and a car for visiting the smaller towns.

Madrid is one of the great museum cities in the world. As we inveterate museum goers, we go to a museum one day, some other activity the following day, museum, etc.

We will be Madrid in April, which we have visited numerous times and this visit we will go the Tapestry factory which was renovated a few years back.

We traveled in the northern part of Portugal with a side trip to Santiago. I wrote a trip report that might interest you; click on my name to find it. Unless you absolutely want to see southern Spain (worth a trip), my impression is that going through southern Portugal would be less interesting for you. So you might decide to stay within the confines of WNW Spain and northern Portugal, and work out a big circular trip to avoid any cross-border drop off fee on your rental.

Remember if you rent a car in Spain be sure to get an IDP (International Driver's Permit.) And if you wear glasses be sure to have a second pair in the car. If stopped by the police, they can be a PITA about those two things.

Yes no car needed in Madrid and can take trains to Toledo- real gem. If doing Portugal consider driving back to Spain and return car in say Seville and take high-speed trains back to Madrid- train info - www.renfe.com; BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com. Returning car in country other than in which you rented it can be expesnive drop-off charges.

I'd consider driving to northern Spain to Santiago Compestella and down thru Portugal - Porto - Lisbon - Evora - Algarve - Seville area. Not all that much to stop off at Cordoba to Madrid so consider returning car and taking train going nearly 200 mph back to Madrid to experience that.

If driving between Madrid and Lisbon or v.v. Cacaeres and Elvas are real gems.