I am going with my best friend to Spain and Portugal next June. Any “must see” places off the beaten path? We will be spending one week in Spain and one in Portugal. The only thing we have definitively planned is to visit Madeira since my grandmother grew up there.
No help here, I’m just expressing my jealousy.
I have heard old town Lisbon is amazing, though.
We spent almost three weeks in Barcelona, Madrid, Porto and Lisbon last fall. We had a fabulous time. I know everyone travels differently but we followed the same basic plan in each city. We stayed in Airbnbs and all the hosts shared great suggestions (often in print as we don’t speak Portuguese, Catalan or Spanish!). The first full day in each city, we took a short (~3 hours) walking tour first thing in the morning. We used withlocals.com and booked before we left home. The tours were great: private, inexpensive and customizable. You watch videos of the guides on the website and choose one who best suits you. After that, we felt confident in wandering without getting lost.
We both most enjoyed the days we just wandered and explored, stopping for a glass of wine or a bite to eat when the mood struck. We did some “tourist must sees” as well (La Sagrada Familia, a tour of the Douro Valley, and Park Guell were favorites.)
We did seek out a restaurant in Porto what I had seen on Anthony Bordain’s show. His picture was on the wall and we were definitely the only tourists in the place. It has been a fun memory that now kind of stings.
Jealous too! I love Spain!
One bit of advice is if you are considering going on RENFE train and want reservations before you go to research instructions to make those reservations before you get on the actual site. Sounds weird but without printed out instructions and the proper credit card or paypal it would never had happened for me.
Three major points (at least when I suffered through it a few years ago) is that unlike buying tix for an airplane in the states you pick your seats FIRST and THEN go buy the tickets (and lots of scenarios of seats depending on who is traveling with you) and then you must have a certain type CC or a paypal account to pay at the end. The third thing is that the site starts in English (you choose the language) but then half way through suddenly is in Spanish! Without the printed instructions and fair warning I wouldn’t have known what to fill in for half the info needed. Traveling by the train in Spain though was a great experience (just not trying to reserve a spot).
Have you been to Spain before? I’ve only mostly hit the tourist spots–all well worth hitting.
I spent three weeks in Spain three years ago and six weeks last year walking the Camino de Santiago and then driving northern Spain by car. Your time is short so I would recommend:
- The Alhambra in Granada. As soon as you know the date you will be there, get your tickets online. We were able to get tickets through our hotel.
- The Mesquita in Cordoba - an amazing site, part Arabic, part Baroque. Unlike any other cathedral in the world.
- The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela - it is not extraordinary from an architectural standpoint but attending the pilgrim mass at noon and seeing the botafumiero (a giant incense burner) swinging and seeing the elated pilgrims enter the square to the bagpiper's tune is an experience.
Really a week is a very short time in a big country like Spain. (I can’t speak about Portugal. I’ve never been). Pick a few spots so you don’t spend all your time rushing from place to place.
I’ve been to Spain three times and IMO one must see is The Alhambra in Grenada (It’s not too far from Seville). It is magical! As someone mentioned above, get tickets as soon as you know your dates.
We enjoyed the town of Ronda. We happened to arrive (by train!) on Halloween. It was a magical night. I also loved the Alcazar in Seville. Absolutely stunning and they filmed some of the exotic scenes of Game of Thrones there. As for Portugal, Lisbon is fun but we (we were on a biking tour) also enjoyed getting out to the countryside and seeing some of the small towns. People are very friendly and the food and wine are delicious!
Lisbon is really hilly. H and I spent a week there and in the surrounding areas about five years ago. A harbor cruise was nice, a visit to Sintra was also nice, and I recommend a trip to the western most point of Europe. It’s a very winding bus ride, but unless the fog is present that day, the views are incredible.
As H is from Spain and we have a place in Madrid, I have too many suggestions and do not go anymore as a tourist. I June, expect heat unless you visit in the North.
Enjoy!
I lived there for several years. The larger Spanish cities tend to be crowded, repetitive, touristy. They also have more than their share of crime (especially pickpockets). Madrid, especially, is a place you could skip entirely and not miss anything except a great art museum). Medium to smaller cities you might enjoy that are in some way special: Salamanca (university town), Puerto de Santa Maria (great seafood, sherry and brandy), Ronda (city on cliff), Toledo, Avila (historic walled city). Also, try to hit a few small towns and villages…
I have to disagree with @moooop regarding Madrid. One of my just post college kids and I spent a very full 10 days and came home with a list of things left over for a return. But, that’s just an indication of different interests and personal experience, I’m sure. Madrid tourist spots are easy to research and include or reject based on interest, so no laundry list from me. Toldeo and Segovia are easy day trips from Madrid, but aren’t off the beaten path. We enjoyed both, but Toldeo especially was full of tourists even in off season.
Some people find the essence of countries in their big cities. There are people who visit the USA & think the only thing to see is NYC. Or visit England & never get out of London. Those people will probably love Madrid.
I loved the tiny villages and countryside of Navarre in the far northeastern corner of Spain. I loved a tiny town in Aragon called Sos del Rey Catolica. But I would not recommend them as ‘must sees’ for someone who has only one week in Spain. So I recommended the biggies. Alhambra, Mesquita. I’d also recommend the Prado.
For Spain train travel, we never could book directly through the RENFE website - kept getting errors. We ended up using Loco2 to book our train travel, and it was easy and worked beautifully https://loco2.com/en-us
Visiting Montserrat was one of our favorites and is a day trip from Barcelona. I personally would spend the entire week around Seville. Cordoba is just a 45 minute train ride away and is a nice day trip.
I gave up on the Renfe website also. Way too complicated and it reverts to Spanish after several clicks through. But we had no problem booking train travel at the station for the next train out. Went from Barcelona to Pamplona. From Burgos to Leon. From Leon to Astorga. There were plenty of empty seats.
Empty seats on the train depend on time of travel–weekends and holidays. Theirs, not ours!
I know tourist spots can be crowded and not ideal for a really relaxing vacation but there is usually a good attraction reason why tourists flock to those sites. I’m partial to the “must sees” based on the fact that I might never get a chance to see them again.
got this in my email from Travel and Leisure, 20 best libraries.
Coimbra Library, University of Coimbra–Alta and Sofia, Portugal
Watch the Netflix Lisbon episode of “somebody feed Phil” - he loves Lisbon, I watched it with daughter who has been to (3X) to Barcelona and other many of places, including two weeks in the Azores this summer.
While we watched th Lisbon episode she kept saying - I’ve been there, and eaten at that restaurant ect.
I haven’t been to Spain, but I have been to Portugal. One small city that H and l loved was Evora. It is in the dao wine region, the Alentejo, has a Roman temple, most of an old Arab wall, and delicious local food. It is in the south, but not on the coast, and it is not far from Spain.
We also loved the southern coast. Sagres is a two pronged cape which is the extreme SW corner of the European continent. Henry the Navigator had his school there and you could wander around when we visited (there was a giant compass in the stone ground). The cliffs heading north and east are quite beautiful.
Further east, the coast looks more like the rock formations in Utah. There are natural arches and domes. You can hire a boat and visit a beach that is only accessible by sea, and they pick you up at the end of the day. I think we stayed at Armacao de Pera and found out about the boats from someone in a restaurant the night before.
Have fun!
I have been to various places in Spain several times in my life including a driving trip with DH for three weeks and we didn’t get to see the entire country. DH and I were in Portugal in June for 10 days and we did have to be choosy as we could not see the whole country in 10 days. Another friend did a 2 week trip in Southern Spain in the spring, flying in and out of Malaga. So your planning will need to include what you are most interested in seeing and how many nights you will be staying in Madeira and travel there and back. I enjoyed the vibe of Portugal very much and will second the above poster regarding Evora as it was one of our trip highlights. We did a tour out of Lisbon for Sintra, Cabo de Rocha (the westernmost part of continental Europe and Cascais) and it was a good use of our time plus our guide was extremely knowledgeable about what we were seeing on the tour but on contemporary Portugal as well. In Spain, although all will be crowded you would want to go to Granada for the Alhambra, Cordoba, Barcelona for the Gaudi architecture, the ambiance, the Miro and Picasso Museums, Madrid for the Prado one of the world’s greatest museums. I haven’t yet been to Bilbao for the Guggenheim but on my list along with the northern coast. Salamanca and Avila in Spain are outstanding destinations as is Merida for the Roman ruins. In Portugal we enjoyed seeing the monastery in Batalha and visiting the university in Coimbra, Porto and Guimares. Truthfully I would probably do just Portugal for two weeks including Madeira. I have a friend whose family was originally from Madeira and she and her DH have been several times and it is lovely. Actually you can include Santiago de Compostela as about 5 hours north of Porto. Spain is huge country west to east while Portugal is not.