Hello! We are planning a trip the third week in September traveling from Minnesota. We are staying 9 nights (first night being overnight flight) and planning to stay 4 nights in Oritsei and 4 nights in Begur. For the trip we are looking for hiking, potentially some cross country biking, and some relaxing coastal time. Last year we combined Slovenia in Croatia with a similar objective, and loved it. Two years ago we travelled to Switzerland and three years ago, Portugal. Long story short, we're looking for confirmation of our stops and advice for any others that might be suggested. We are planning to fly into Venice and out of Barcelona. We understand we'd probably need to fly from Italy to Spain. Thank you!

I can't help with either of your destinations, but you might want to think about places that aren't so far apart, especially with such a short trip. What makes you choose these spots?

time, distance, crazy

I have the same questions that SusanP asked.

Forget day 1. A flight from Minneapolis to Venice will take about 13 hrs. Add some 6 hrs between landing at VCE and arrival at Ortisei.
Ortisei - Begur:
If you take the plane between Verona and Barcelona (not daily), it takes a whle day. At some days you will have to sleep at either Verona or Barcelona (or fly via Berlin, Amsterdam or so)
Barcelona bound flights from VCE or MXP are daily. The bus and train ride from Ortisei to MXCP takes about 6 hrs.
Eventually you will stay 3 days each at Ortisei and Begur.
The train solution woud take about 24 hrs (with a night sppnt in a hotel at Lyon). Orttisei dp about 10.00am - Begur around 1.00pm the following day

It's your trip, of course, but this sounds like it would be dreadful. Anything could go wrong, too.

8 days minus arrival day and departure day which will be useless for your recreational purposes leaves 6 days minus a day getting from place one to place two leaves 5 days out of eight, a poor ratio, and it could have bad weather for some of them. Multimodal transfers allows too many failure points, also.

Go to only one of the two and have a great time.

I agree with all the others. Combining Ortisei, Italy with Begur, Spain, just doesn't make any sense. You waste so much time traveling from Ortisei to Begur. Have you been to Venice? Since you are flying into Venice, it would make the most sense to divide up your time between Venice and Ortisei. 4 nights in Venice and 4 nights in Ortisei would be an awesome trip!

Or to piggyback as an alternative suggestion to perhaps spend your entire stay around Begur as there are mountainous areas near enough for you to hike in (or to split your time from). I don't know a lot about that area of Spain to offer concrete suggestions but I am sure there are many Fodorites that could.

First rule of travel, when in doubt, "Keep it simple."

Thanks for the responses, and point taken. In our trip last year we flew into Venice, travelled to Ljublana, Bovec, and from there to Rovinj before flying back out of Venice. That really checked all our boxes so were attempting to recreate in a couple other countries. Would welcome some other options that would give us hiking and biking options close to some coastal relaxation. We've done Venice but not the Dolomites. I've travelled some in Spain but my partner hasn't, so were hoping to experience two different areas, but understand those locations might be a challenging in that period of time.

Aosta Valley is the perfect hiking area and easy to reach from Geneva airport or Turin airport.
The beaches between Genoa and Nice ar just about a 6 hrs train ride away.
We could then fly home from either Genova, Nice, Milan Malpensa or Turin.

Or do your mountain hiking around Chamonix, Verbier, Haute Nendaz, Crans-Monana or Val'Anniviers, all not more than 3 hrs from Geneva airport
From GVA you can fly wherever you like: Corsica, Sardinia, Mallorca, Ibiza, Barcelona (for Begur) .......