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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

Segovia is awesome but two notes — the train station that train leaves from is enormous so leave plenty of time to find the right place for your train. Also the train station in Segovia is a couple miles outside the city. There is a bus but it’s slow and it goes first to the aqueduct and then the alcazar so don’t get alcazar tickets to close to your arrival time. There will likely not be cabs at the station but there is a phone number you can call to request a taxi and they come pretty quickly. I spoke Spanish when calling — not sure how good their English is but you really only need to be able to say a couple phrases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I consumed a lot of iced sangria, lemon fanta and water! My daughter’s favorite phrase was “Agra sin gas por favor”. But it’s amazing how cool the old cathedrals and castles stay. And the old stone narrow streets are so much cooler than our wild asphalt roads.

[Anonymous]

Valencia was great and if you go to Madrid stay in the are of Salamanca the rest of Madrid is like Detroit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Valencia was great and if you go to Madrid stay in the are of Salamanca the rest of Madrid is like Detroit.

Dumb statement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Valencia was great and if you go to Madrid stay in the are of Salamanca the rest of Madrid is like Detroit.

Dumb statement

A truly crazy thing to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Valencia was great and if you go to Madrid stay in the are of Salamanca the rest of Madrid is like Detroit.

We stayed at a marriot near Atocha train station because it was a really good price. Not the most fun neighborhood but it was a short walk to the metro and about a 5-10 minute walk to some fun areas. I thought the hotel prices in the really fancy areas were kind of shockingly high.. there are some cool fancy hotels in Madrid though —converted palaces and such.

[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.

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

We stayed in the old city, but friends were staying by the beach. Was about a 4-mile bike ride. Protected bike lanes on most streets, though, so it was easy.