We are planning to take a two week trip to Spain during spring break next year. EEK! It’s NEXT year already!! Wow, how the time it does fly. And I thought I’d create a blog post just for it. It’s good to have a rough agenda of at least where you’ll be and to have hotels booked. We will be staying in only three cities this time, Barcelona, Madrid and Málaga, which will allow us a few day trips. This differs from our last two week adventure 5 years ago when we stayed in too many cities. Oh, it was a fabulous trip, but it was a bit too much travelling between cities.
We know the hotels we’d like to stay at in Madrid and Málaga but we haven’t yet chosen our hotel for Barcelona. Perhaps there are other travelers out there that could give a recommendation? Either way, here are two that really interest me. We need a hotel that is close to a metro, not on the Ramblas but a short walk to it would be great. It should be able to accommodate three people. Both of these hotels meet those criteria.
First is Villa Emilia. It’s #23 out of 516 hotels in Barcelona and it gets rave reviews on TripAdvisor. Here is the hotel’s website.
Next is Condes de Barcelona which is #96 out of 516 hotels, also gets rave reviews on TripAdvisor. Hotel Condes de Barcelona’s website.
We will take a flight from Minneapolis and fly through Amsterdam both directions. After our Paris fiasco, we are hesitant to ever fly through Charles De Gaulle again. One day I might write a blog post about it. But I digress.
We’ll get to Barcelona on a Saturday and I’m really hoping we don’t miss the sardana at the catedral on Sunday at noon. Or perhaps we should take a flight out on Thursday so that in case we have jet lag we won’t sleep through the sardana like we did 5 years ago. That’s a possibility.
Here is our rough itinerary as it is right now.
Day 1 (F) – fly to Amsterdam
Day 2 (Sa) – arrive in Barcelona
Day 3 (Su) – Barcelona- try to see the Sardana at noon in front of the catedral; Picasso museum in the afternoon. (Check website for the Picasso museum to see if it’s still free on Sundays and adjust accordingly)
Day 4 (M) – Barcelona-Gaudi day? (Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Casa Batlo, La Pedrera)
Day 5 (Tu) – Barcelona- do leftover Gaudi stuff we didn’t get to yesterday because, really, that’s a lot! We’d also like to reserve at least one restaurant for a fabulous meal. I have a few places bookmarked but nothing picked out as of yet. Any recommendations?
Day 6 (W) – to Madrid
Day 7 (Th) – Madrid – day trip to Segovia(weekly flea market on Th from 8 to 3); make reservations at Meson de Candido? (open 1-4:30) or Restaurante Jose Maria? (TA reviewer said lamb is great)
Day 8 (F) – Madrid
Day 9 (Sa) – Madrid – day trip to Toledo (meet ladyofthecakes!! I hope)
Day 10 (Su) – Madrid – Rastro, Retiro, Reina Sofia is free from 1:30 to 7:00 (El Brillante afterwards)
Day 11 (M) – Madrid
Day 12(Tu) – to Málaga (take early to mid afternoon train)
Day 13 (W) – Málaga
Day 14 (Th) – Málaga – day trip to Cordoba
Day 15 (F) – Málaga
Day 16 (Sa) – Málaga
Day 17 (Su) – fly home
There are some things that I want to get done ahead of time. Plane tickets are obvious, but I also want to book hotels and purchase train tickets. There is a post on TipAdvisor that describes how to purchase Renfe train tickets online. It’s very helpful and I’ll be perusing it once again towards the end of this year to freshen up on how it works. There are updates all the time to this post and it’s a great tool. One other thing I need to make reservations for are some restaurants where we’d like to dine. One for sure is Posada de la Villa, which is a favorite of ours. As you can see above, I would also like to reserve a spot at a restaurant in Segovia.
So many little things go into planning a trip. I will be refining this as it gets closer to our departure and this is what I’ve got today just 13.5 months prior to departure. But who’s counting?? Ha ha. I’d love any comments and suggestions for any piece of this trip. Thanks so much!! I’m going to close with some photos of the places we’ll be visiting next year. NEXT year!!! Yay!
La mezquita, Córdoba:
It will be fun to see the progress of Sagrada Familia, Barcelona:
One of my favorite cities in the world and this is a treasured spot – Plaza Mayor – Madrid:
One of my other favorite cities in the world, Toledo:
And, one last one. Teatro Romano, Málaga:
travels with toby 