Hello fellow flyertalkers! My fiancee and I are getting married in September 2015 and are planning to go on a honeymoon in Spain a few days after our wedding. This will be financed mostly with miles and points, so I am trying to have our dates and the basic outline of the trip set before the t-minus one-year window comes up. I thought I'd tell you all my ideas and see what kind of input I get regarding our proposed cities, how much time we're currently thinking about spending in each place, and how that all fits into the kind of vacation we want.
When it comes to travel, we enjoy walkability, history, great food and drink, night-life (we prefer quieter, lower key establishments but are ok going a little crazy once or twice on a longer trip), beautiful scenery and architecture, friendly/welcoming locals, and a measured pace. We're from Los Angeles, so we love being able to walk and use public transportation because we don't get to do it as much as we'd like at home! On our last European trip (18 nights) we didn't spend even a single minute in a car, and we hope we can do that this time as well (with one exception--see below). If it makes a difference, we are both 30 years old.
We are currently planning to spend approximately 16 nights on this trip, although that is flexible within a couple nights either way. The current itinerary we're thinking about is:
Fly to Palma de Mallorca
4 nights on Mallorca--specific location/hotel TBD (planning to rent a car for this portion of the trip)
fly to Seville
2 nights in Seville
train to Madrid
4 nights in Madrid, including day trips to Segovia and Toledo
train to Valencia
2 nights in Valencia
train to Barcelona
4 nights in Barcelona
This is all tentative, so any and all input regarding our itinerary, and how you might change it based on your knowledge and experience, is welcome. Some specific questions I have are:
- Are we spending too much or too little time in any specific city? Note that we're not too keen on spending just one night in any given place--we did that on our last big European trip, and we didn't like how rushed we felt and how little of each one-night-stay city we got to see.
- Should we think about moving our stay on Mallorca to the middle or end of the trip? Our thinking is that it would be really nice to have the relaxing/beach vacation part of our trip at the beginning, right after the hectic wedding and long overseas travel. It will give us time to adjust to the time zone and have a few days of R&R on Mallorca before we embark on the more touristy part of the trip. It also means one less airport hassle if the PMI part is at the beginning (or end) of the trip. But, we're open to alternatives if others think there are good reasons to move this.
- Do the cities we picked generally fit what we're looking for/like to do when we travel?
- Does the order in which we're planning to visit these cities make sense? If not, how would you change it, and why?
- Are there any cities on the list you'd omit, or replace with others that aren't on it? If so, why?
- Should we bother with the day trips to Segovia and Toledo from Madrid?
I think that covers most of my lingering thoughts on the matter. As stated above, any input is GREATLY appreciated. As the travel planner, it's important to me that I give my future wife an amazing honeymoon experience that we'll both look back on with great memories.
Thank you for your help!