Spain Itinerary Update: The Hub and Side Trip Plan

Based on our conversation the other night, here's where I think we are at. We are going with the "hub and side trip" plan.


Lisbon: Saturday October 19 to Tuesday, October 22

Madrid: Tuesday October 22 to Saturday October 26.

Seville: Saturday October 26 to Tuesday October 29.

Barcelona: Tuesday October 29 to Sunday November 3.

So we basically have 3 days in Lisbon, 4 days in Madrid, 3 days in Seville, and 4 (kinda 5) days in Barcelona. I think the trip from Seville to Barcelona will take most of the day.

Madrid

 On 10/22, we can either fly to Madrid for $41 (if we take a 7 AM flight), or take the overnight train on 10/21, both get us there early Tuesday morning.

On 10/26, we can take the train to Seville. It's only 2.5 hours and there are trains about every 30 minutes. Cost is about $80.

 On 10/29, we can take the train to Barcelona. There is a slow train (11.5 hours) that leaves at 8:35 AM, or high speed trains (5.5 hours) that leave at 8:50 AM or 2:50 PM. About $60 for the slow train, $120 for the high speed train.

 OR

On 10/22, we could instead fly TAP Portugal to Seville or about $120. Leave at 12:55 PM, arrive at 2:55 PM.

On 10/25 we take the train to Madrid. Trains every 30 minutes, takes 2.5 hours to get to Madrid, $80.

On 10/29 we take the train to Barcelona. There are fast, slow, and medium trains. Basically it would be 2.5-3 hours for somewhere between $105 and $130.

The first route is cheaper, but you have slightly longer train travel. It doesn't really matter to me. If we want to rent apartments in Madrid and Barcelona to do laundry, maybe it makes sense to split them up this way. But it's not like we couldn't rent an apartment in Seville if we wanted to. We could keep things open ended with our travel passes. We don't have to reserve seats in advance. We could just get travel passes. If we want to reserve seats, we could probably do so at the train station. I think we could pull that off even if we have to converse with the ticket attendant in Spanish. If we go the open-ended route, we might have to stick with hotels. You can usually add a day onto your reservation or leave a day earlier than your reservation easier in hotels than with apartments.