8 day Trip to Spain with Teenagers-1 city and 1 beach

[Anonymous]

We are going to Spain next summer (yes I know it will be hot!) and I'd like to do one major city and one smaller city or beach. Have already done Barcelona and San Sebastian so am thinking maybe Madrid and Valencia but would love ideas and recs. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Just got back from Valencia and cannot recommend it more strongly. Beautiful city, nice beach, great food, pretty laid back vibes. Also, it's a very easy two-hour high-speed train to Madrid, for whenever you want to move from one to the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just got back from Valencia and cannot recommend it more strongly. Beautiful city, nice beach, great food, pretty laid back vibes. Also, it's a very easy two-hour high-speed train to Madrid, for whenever you want to move from one to the other.

Agreed. We did Valencia and Madrid last summer and absolutely loved Valencia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got back from Valencia and cannot recommend it more strongly. Beautiful city, nice beach, great food, pretty laid back vibes. Also, it's a very easy two-hour high-speed train to Madrid, for whenever you want to move from one to the other.

Agreed. We did Valencia and Madrid last summer and absolutely loved Valencia.

Thanks! How did you feel about Madrid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just got back from Valencia and cannot recommend it more strongly. Beautiful city, nice beach, great food, pretty laid back vibes. Also, it's a very easy two-hour high-speed train to Madrid, for whenever you want to move from one to the other.

NP- could you share where you stayed in Valencia? On the beach or walking distance?
Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Granada is a very cool, trendy town for teens. There's a university, it has really interesting culture combos in food, music, and architecture.

[Anonymous]

Madrid and San Sebastián

[Anonymous]

Madrid is a snooze. Recommend Granada or Sevilla.

[Anonymous]

Salou is an amazing beach town.

[Anonymous]

I just got back from this trip with my ten and we did Madrid and San Sebastián. I also thought about Denia instead of San Sebastián but decided that would be better with a car and I didn’t want to deal with a car. But from Denia there is more hiking and I think you can do snorkeling and such.

In Madrid we did this:
Day 1 arrive, lunch, afternoon at Prado, rest, tapas dinner.
Day 2 fast train to Toledo walked around old quarter went to cheese museum, mesquita, Alcazar and cathedral. Lunch and train home. Rest. Tapas dinner.
Day 3. Rastro market. Palace. Cathedral. Shopping at teeny bopper type clothes stores. Lunch’. Ice cream. Plaza mayor and Puerto del sol. Back to hotel to rest. Tapas dinner out.
Day 4: fast train to Segovia. Toured the alcazar (disney like castle). Saw the aqueduct. Are lunch at plaza mayor. Toured the cathedral (great place for photos in the courtyard). Fast train back. Resting. Tapas dinner.

There was a heat wave when we were there so we really moderated our plans. I had planned to go to retoro park and we just couldn’t bear the idea of walking outside that much. I had also planned to go to Reina Sofia but it was harder to motivate. We did more leisurely meals with cool beverages.

I think Granada and Sevilla are both awesome. But my teen really wanted to see the big city, royal palace etc. also the idea of going further south in the summer was unappetizing. If we went for spring break or Thanksgiving I would want to do Sevilla and Granada. Another city that looked very cool that I considered was Burgos. There are medieval walls and cathedral plus it’s close to some of the famous early human cave paintings and there is a museum of early man. I couldn’t sell my teen on Burgos, which she’d never heard of, but it looked very cool to me. There’s probably other cities like that that would be fun for a couple of days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just got back from this trip with my ten and we did Madrid and San Sebastián. I also thought about Denia instead of San Sebastián but decided that would be better with a car and I didn’t want to deal with a car. But from Denia there is more hiking and I think you can do snorkeling and such.

In Madrid we did this:
Day 1 arrive, lunch, afternoon at Prado, rest, tapas dinner.
Day 2 fast train to Toledo walked around old quarter went to cheese museum, mesquita, Alcazar and cathedral. Lunch and train home. Rest. Tapas dinner.
Day 3. Rastro market. Palace. Cathedral. Shopping at teeny bopper type clothes stores. Lunch’. Ice cream. Plaza mayor and Puerto del sol. Back to hotel to rest. Tapas dinner out.
Day 4: fast train to Segovia. Toured the alcazar (disney like castle). Saw the aqueduct. Are lunch at plaza mayor. Toured the cathedral (great place for photos in the courtyard). Fast train back. Resting. Tapas dinner.

There was a heat wave when we were there so we really moderated our plans. I had planned to go to retoro park and we just couldn’t bear the idea of walking outside that much. I had also planned to go to Reina Sofia but it was harder to motivate. We did more leisurely meals with cool beverages.

I think Granada and Sevilla are both awesome. But my teen really wanted to see the big city, royal palace etc. also the idea of going further south in the summer was unappetizing. If we went for spring break or Thanksgiving I would want to do Sevilla and Granada. Another city that looked very cool that I considered was Burgos. There are medieval walls and cathedral plus it’s close to some of the famous early human cave paintings and there is a museum of early man. I couldn’t sell my teen on Burgos, which she’d never heard of, but it looked very cool to me. There’s probably other cities like that that would be fun for a couple of days.

Thanks so much for sharing this! I’m going to try to squeeze in a similar 6-day trip before school starts!

[Anonymous]

seville and cadiz

[Anonymous]

Valencia Madrid if you have never been

[Anonymous]

Madrid is amazing, big city with a million things to see. From Madrid you can reach Valencia, which I haven't had a chance yet to visit, or strike south to Malaga and the Costa del Sol, which has dozens of beach towns. They aren't particularly historical, but very pretty and relatively easy to get around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just got back from this trip with my ten and we did Madrid and San Sebastián. I also thought about Denia instead of San Sebastián but decided that would be better with a car and I didn’t want to deal with a car. But from Denia there is more hiking and I think you can do snorkeling and such.

In Madrid we did this:
Day 1 arrive, lunch, afternoon at Prado, rest, tapas dinner.
Day 2 fast train to Toledo walked around old quarter went to cheese museum, mesquita, Alcazar and cathedral. Lunch and train home. Rest. Tapas dinner.
Day 3. Rastro market. Palace. Cathedral. Shopping at teeny bopper type clothes stores. Lunch’. Ice cream. Plaza mayor and Puerto del sol. Back to hotel to rest. Tapas dinner out.
Day 4: fast train to Segovia. Toured the alcazar (disney like castle). Saw the aqueduct. Are lunch at plaza mayor. Toured the cathedral (great place for photos in the courtyard). Fast train back. Resting. Tapas dinner.

There was a heat wave when we were there so we really moderated our plans. I had planned to go to retoro park and we just couldn’t bear the idea of walking outside that much. I had also planned to go to Reina Sofia but it was harder to motivate. We did more leisurely meals with cool beverages.

I think Granada and Sevilla are both awesome. But my teen really wanted to see the big city, royal palace etc. also the idea of going further south in the summer was unappetizing. If we went for spring break or Thanksgiving I would want to do Sevilla and Granada. Another city that looked very cool that I considered was Burgos. There are medieval walls and cathedral plus it’s close to some of the famous early human cave paintings and there is a museum of early man. I couldn’t sell my teen on Burgos, which she’d never heard of, but it looked very cool to me. There’s probably other cities like that that would be fun for a couple of days.

I am impressed at your stamina in the historic heatwave! Don't feel bad about the Retiro; a lot of parks in Madrid get shut down/closed during high heat days so it would have been awful to have gotten all the way to the gates only to discover it was closed and/or all the fun stuff was roped off.