Mix & Match: Spain Express

Welcome to Spain. On arrival at Barcelona airport, make your own way to your hotel and the rest of the day is yours.Barcelona is the Catalan capital and wears it openly, in the language on the street signs, the food and the flags on the balconies. The Gothic Quarter is the oldest part of the city, a knot of narrow lanes and small squares built on the Roman street plan, and the Ramblas runs down from Plaça de Catalunya to the sea through the middle of it.If you would rather be by the water, the Barceloneta seafront is a short walk or metro ride from the centre. This evening is at leisure, and the obvious way to spend it is over tapas, with pa amb tomàquet, jamón and a glass of vermut or cava.Special InformationAirport transfers are not included as part of your package. To make your own way to your hotel from the airport, we recommend using taxis booked from an official taxi rank at the airport, the Aerobús to Plaça de Catalunya, or the metro. As an added service, we do offer airport transfers at an additional cost which can be booked via your Traveller Hub. Please note - this itinerary is unescorted. You will make your way between destinations. A step by step guide will be included in your documentation.

After breakfast, the day in Barcelona is yours, beginning with a skip-the-line entrance to the Sagrada Família.Gaudí began the basilica in 1882 and it is still not finished. The two completed façades could not be less alike, the Nativity front dense with carved stone and the Passion front stripped back to hard angles, and the nave between them is built as a forest of branching columns with the light coming through coloured glass, warm on one side and cool on the other.The rest of Gaudí is spread across the city. Park Güell sits on a hill in the north with its mosaic terrace and views back over the rooftops, and Casa Batlló and La Pedrera stand on Passeig de Gràcia, the boulevard that runs through the grid of the Eixample. Montjuïc rises on the other side of the city, with gardens, the Joan Miró Foundation and the 1992 Olympic ring along the top. The evening is at leisure.Inspiring HighlightsSagrada Família Special InformationYour Sagrada Família entrance ticket will be included in your final documentation. Entry is by timed slot and shoulders and knees must be covered.

After breakfast, check out of your hotel and make your own way to Barcelona Sants station for the high-speed train to Madrid, a little under three hours across the interior of Spain.Madrid is a capital built by royal decree rather than by trade, and it feels grander and more formal than Barcelona. Gran Vía cuts through the centre lined with early twentieth century office blocks, theatres and rooftop bars, and it runs down towards Puerta del Sol, the square that marks kilometre zero of the Spanish road network.A few streets south, Plaza Mayor is a closed arcaded square from the Habsburg city, and the streets around it hold some of the oldest taverns in Madrid. If you would rather sit down, the Retiro Park is a short walk east, with its lake, its rose garden and the glass Crystal Palace at the far end. The evening is at leisure.Special InformationYour travel time today will be approximately 3 hours.Your train tickets and step by step directions to the station will be included in your final documentation. Tickets on this sector are 2nd class on the direct high-speed service.

After breakfast, the day in Madrid is yours, with a 24 hour hop-on hop-off bus pass included.The route links the city’s landmarks and is the easiest way to cover ground here, because Madrid is larger on foot than it looks on a map. The Royal Palace is the largest functioning royal palace in Western Europe by floor area, with more than three thousand rooms, and the Almudena Cathedral stands opposite it across a formal square.East of the centre, the Paseo del Prado holds three of the great European galleries within a few hundred metres of each other. The Prado covers the Spanish court painters, with Velázquez and Goya at its heart. The Reina Sofía holds Picasso’s Guernica. The Thyssen-Bornemisza fills the gaps between the two with a private collection that runs from the primitives to pop art. The evening is at leisure.Inspiring HighlightsMadrid Hop-on Hop-off Bus, 24 hoursSpecial InformationYour hop-on hop-off pass and boarding details will be included in your final documentation. The pass is valid for 24 hours from first use.

After breakfast, check out of your hotel and board the train south to Granada, around four hours across the plains of La Mancha and the olive groves of Jaén before the Sierra Nevada comes into view.Granada was the last Moorish city in Spain, held until 1492, and eight hundred years of that rule are still legible in the streets. The Albaicín is the old Moorish quarter on the hill facing the Alhambra, a maze of white houses, walled gardens and cobbled lanes that is UNESCO listed in its own right, and the viewpoint at San Nicolás looks straight across the valley to the palace with the mountains behind it.Granada also keeps a tradition that has died out almost everywhere else in Spain: order a drink and a plate of tapas arrives with it, at no charge. The evening is at leisure and this is the city to spend it moving between bars.Special InformationYour travel time today will be approximately 4 hours.Your train tickets and step by step directions to the station will be included in your final documentation. Tickets on this sector are 2nd class, and the service is either direct or with one change depending on the day.

After breakfast, the day is yours in Granada, with entrance to the Alhambra included.The Alhambra is a walled city rather than a single building, set on a ridge above Granada and UNESCO listed. The Nasrid Palaces are the reason most people come: a sequence of courtyards, water channels and rooms where every surface is worked into carved plaster, tile and honeycombed vaulting, built for the last Muslim rulers of the peninsula.The Generalife gardens sit above the palaces on the neighbouring hill, laid out as the summer estate with clipped hedges, long pools and views back across the whole complex. The Alcazaba, the oldest part, is the fortress at the western point, and the walk up its towers gives the best view over the city. The rest of the day is free for the Albaicín, and the evening is at leisure.Inspiring HighlightsAlhambra de Granada Special InformationYour Alhambra entrance ticket will be included in your final documentation. Entry to the Nasrid Palaces is by a timed slot which cannot be changed on the day, and you will need to bring the passport used at the time of booking, as names are checked against tickets at the gate. The site is large and largely outdoors, with cobbles, slopes and steps throughout.

After breakfast, check out of your hotel and board the direct train to Málaga, around two hours down through the mountains to the Mediterranean.Málaga has changed a great deal in the last twenty years. It was long treated as the gateway to the Costa del Sol and little more, and it is now a city worth stopping in, with a pedestrianised old town, some thirty museums and a reworked port.The Alcazaba is the Moorish fortress that climbs the hill in the middle of the city, with a Roman theatre uncovered at its foot, and a path continues up to the Gibralfaro castle above it for the view along the coast. Picasso was born here, and the Museo Picasso Málaga holds work kept by his family. Below all of it the Muelle Uno promenade runs along the water to the lighthouse and the city beach. The evening is at leisure.Special InformationYour travel time today will be approximately 2 hours.Your train tickets and step by step directions to the station will be included in your final documentation. Tickets on this sector are 2nd class on the direct service.

After breakfast, check out of your hotel and make your own way to Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport for your onward journey.Take with you the memory of a journey by rail the length of Spain, from Gaudí and the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona to the galleries and grand squares of Madrid, the Alhambra above Granada and the Mediterranean at Málaga.Thank you for travelling with Inspiring Vacations. We hope you had a memorable experience.Special InformationAirport transfers are not included as part of your package. To make your own way to Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport, the local train from Málaga Centro-Alameda takes around twelve minutes, or you can take a taxi from the rank outside your hotel.As an added service, we do offer airport transfers at an additional cost which can be booked via your Traveller Hub. These must be booked at least 70 days prior to departure.