Justicia
Urso
A five-star boutique hotel in Justicia, near Chueca and Las Salesas, in a towered corner building with a spa and a water area.
Itinerary · 21 days
The Grand Spanish Tour
Spain's great cities and regions in one unhurried journey, from the Alhambra to the Basque coast.
By Ramin Jafari · Facts checked
A private three-week journey across Spain: Madrid and Toledo, Córdoba and Seville, the Alhambra in Granada, the mountains of Mallorca, Gaudí’s Barcelona, San Sebastián’s table and the vineyards of the Duero. It suits a first long journey through the country, and every part of it can change.
The route
From Madrid to the Duero, by rail, road and air
The order of the journey, and how you travel between its seven places.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
Days 12–14 · three nights
Gaudí, the old city and Picasso, and a day in Figueres and Girona.
Days 15–17 · three nights
Pintxos and a starred table, Bilbao, and the French Basque coast.
Days 18–21 · three nights
La Rioja on the way, then the estates, Peñafiel and the drive home.
A private transfer meets every arrival, and your own driver takes every road: Córdoba to Seville, Seville to Granada, the days out to Figueres, Bilbao and the French coast, and the drive south from San Sebastián through La Rioja. The high-speed train reaches Toledo in 30 minutes and Córdoba in 1 h 40; three short flights join Granada to Palma, Palma to Barcelona and Barcelona to San Sebastián.
Highlights
Six moments on the way
The Prado and the Royal Palace
Velázquez and Goya with an art historian, and the state rooms of a palace of more than 3,000 rooms.
The Alhambra
The Nasrid Palaces and the gardens of the Generalife with a licensed guide, the Sierra Nevada behind.
A cove on Mallorca
An afternoon by the sea: a private boat to a quiet cove for a swim, or a day bed at a beach club.
Gaudí's Barcelona
The Sagrada Família, Casa Batlló, La Pedrera and Park Güell, with a guide of your own.
Pintxos in the Parte Vieja
An evening between the old town's bars with a food guide, and a tasting menu at a starred table.
The Duero's wine
Tastings at estates of the Ribera del Duero, where wine has been made for more than 2,500 years.
Days 1–3
Madrid, and a day in Toledo
Madrid first: the Royal Palace and the Prado with a guide, a day in Toledo, and the city’s market and museums.
Day 1
Arrival, the Royal Palace and the Prado
A private transfer from Barajas, then the Royal Palace with a private guide: still the King’s official residence, a palace of more than 3,000 rooms with works by Caravaggio, Velázquez and Goya. Lunch at a tapas bar off the Plaza Mayor, and the Prado in the afternoon with an art historian: Velázquez’s Las Meninas, Goya’s Third of May, 1808 and his Black Paintings. The evening in Malasaña.
Day 2
Toledo
By high-speed train to Toledo, 30 minutes from Madrid, or with your driver, for a day on foot with a private guide in the city on its rock above the Tagus: a Roman town, then the Visigoths’ capital, on the World Heritage List since 1986. The Gothic Cathedral, begun in 1226, whose sacristy holds El Greco’s Expolio, and the Alcázar on the highest hill, with the Army Museum inside and the city below its terraces.
Day 3
The market and the Thyssen
A morning with a food guide, on request: the Mercado de San Miguel, an iron market of 1916 a few steps from the Plaza Mayor, for ham, cheeses from all over Spain and a glass of wine, and a vermouth before lunch, at about one, as Madrid takes it. In the afternoon, the Thyssen-Bornemisza with a guide: seven centuries of European painting, a few minutes’ walk from the Prado.
Where you stay in Madrid
Palacio
Palacio de los Duques
A five-star 19th-century palace between the Plaza de Oriente and Gran Vía, with a historic garden and a pool on the roof.
Day 4
Córdoba, on the way to Seville
The high-speed train south: Córdoba is 1 h 40 from Madrid. A private guide takes you through the Mezquita-Catedral, a mosque founded in 786 and a cathedral since 1236; the Jewish quarter around it; and the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos, home to the Catholic Monarchs for eight years, its gardens on terraces of pools and fountains. Then on to Seville with your driver.
Day 5
Santa Cruz, the Alcázar and flamenco
Seville on foot with a private guide: Santa Cruz, the city’s Jewish quarter until 1492, its lanes, the Callejón del Agua among them, and its small squares, then the Real Alcázar, where the Almohad palace and the Mudéjar palace of Pedro I stand side by side. In the evening, the Museo del Baile Flamenco, which the dancer Cristina Hoyos founded in an 18th-century house: its exhibition, then the show in its courtyard, at seats we reserve, or a dance class of your own.
Day 6
The Cathedral and the Plaza de España
The Cathedral and the Giralda with a guide: UNESCO calls the Cathedral the largest Gothic building in Europe, and the tower, once the mosque’s minaret, is climbed by ramps made for a rider on horseback. A long lunch, then the Plaza de España, Aníbal González’s semicircle of brick and tile for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, as the heat goes out of the day.
Where you stay in Seville
El Arenal
Mercer Sevilla
An intimate five-star boutique hotel in a late 19th-century mansion in El Arenal, with a rooftop terrace and pool for guests.
Santa Cruz
Hotel Alfonso XIII
Landmark grandeur: Seville's famous 1929 grand hotel, with a colonnaded courtyard restaurant and an outdoor pool.
Day 7
Into Granada, and the Albaicín
East to Granada with your driver. In the afternoon, the Albaicín on foot with a historian: the quarter where Granada’s court sat before the Alhambra, which UNESCO calls the best-preserved illustration of a Hispano-Muslim city in the south of Spain. The Alhambra at sunset from the Mirador de San Nicolás, then dinner in a carmen, one of the quarter’s houses with a walled garden.
Day 8
The Alhambra, and a hammam
The Alhambra with a licensed guide: the Nasrid Palaces and the gardens of the Generalife, the emirs’ country residence. It books up months ahead, so we reserve it as soon as your dates are fixed. In the late afternoon, a hammam, an Arab bath at the foot of the Alhambra: its waters, then a massage.
Where you stay in Granada
Centro histórico
Seda Club
A twenty-room five-star Gran Lujo house on the Plaza de la Trinidad, with a rooftop bar and a heated pool.
Centro histórico
Palacio Gran Vía
A five-star Gran Lujo house of 38 rooms in the old Rodríguez-Acosta bank, facing the Cathedral, with a rooftop bar and a spa under a brick vault.
Day 9
To Mallorca, and the sea
A short flight from Granada to Palma, and a private transfer into the Serra de Tramuntana, where you stay. The afternoon by the sea: a private boat to a quiet cove for a swim and a picnic, away from the busier beaches, or a day bed at a beach club, on request.
Day 10
Palma, Valldemossa and Deià
Palma’s Cathedral and old town with a private guide: La Seu is Mediterranean Gothic, built from the 13th century to the 1630s, its interior reordered by Gaudí between 1904 and 1915. Then up into the mountains to Valldemossa, whose Charterhouse sheltered Chopin and George Sand through the winter of 1838–39, and on to Deià, where Robert Graves settled in 1929; his house, Ca n’Alluny, is now a museum.
Day 11
The Serra de Tramuntana
A day in the Serra de Tramuntana with a mountain guide, at your own pace. The range runs about 90 km along the island’s north-west, a cultural landscape on the World Heritage List since 2011, and its paths, the dry-stone GR-221 among them, climb between terraces and woods above the sea. A picnic on the way, and the evening back at your hotel.
Where you stay on Mallorca
Puigpunyent
Grand Hotel Son Net
A 17th-century manor on a country estate in the Tramuntana foothills, with its own vineyard, an outdoor pool and a spa of over 1,000 m².
Deià
Belmond La Residencia
Twin 16th- and 17th-century manor houses on a Deià hillside, with 67 rooms, a spa, indoor and outdoor pools and an art gallery.
Day 12
Barcelona, and Gaudí's houses
A short flight to Barcelona. In the afternoon, Gaudí’s two houses on the Passeig de Gràcia with a private guide: Casa Batlló, its noble floor under a ceiling that undulates like the sea, and La Pedrera. Then up to Park Güell in Gràcia as the afternoon goes, its monumental area of 12 hectares and the mosaic bench above the city.
Day 13
The Sagrada Família and the old city
The Sagrada Família in the morning with a private guide: Gaudí’s basilica, begun in 1882 and still being built, its central tower completed in 2026, a hundred years after his death. We reserve it as soon as your dates are fixed. In the afternoon, the Gothic Quarter with a historian, Santa Maria del Mar, built between 1329 and 1383, and the Museu Picasso, the place to see his formative years; dinner in El Born.
Day 14
Figueres and Girona
North with your driver to Figueres and the Dalí Theatre-Museum, which Dalí made in the town’s old theatre and opened in 1974: “the world’s largest surrealist object”, in the museum’s own words, seen on its own guided tour. Then Girona with a private guide: the Cathedral, its Gothic nave 23 m wide; the Call, the Jewish quarter inside the Força Vella; the 12th-century baths, Romanesque despite their name; and the walk along the walls.
Where you stay in Barcelona
Eixample
Cotton House
A five-star house in the Eixample, the cotton guild's former headquarters, with a library, a rooftop pool and a tailor's workshop.
Barceloneta
Hotel Arts
A Gran luxe tower on the beachfront by the Port Olímpic, with rooms over the sea or the city and two outdoor pools in its gardens.
Days 15–21
San Sebastián, La Rioja and the Duero
San Sebastián and its table, with days in Bilbao and over the French border, then south through La Rioja to the vineyards of the Duero.
Day 15
To San Sebastián, and pintxos
A flight from Barcelona to San Sebastián’s airport, 22 km from the city, and your driver into town. In the evening, a pintxo route through the Parte Vieja with a food guide: one or two pintxos at each bar, as the city does it, with a glass of txakoli, the white of the Basque coast’s own Denomination of Origin.
Day 16
Bilbao
A day in Bilbao with a private guide. The Guggenheim first: Frank Gehry’s building of titanium, limestone and glass on a bend of the Nervión, open since October 1997. Then the Seven Streets of the old town, with Santiago Cathedral at their heart since the late 14th century, and the new riverfront, the Euskalduna palace and Norman Foster’s metro stations. Back in San Sebastián, a tasting menu at one of its Michelin-starred tables.
Day 17
The French Basque coast
Over the border with your driver and a private guide. Bayonne first, where the Nive meets the Adour, its cathedral on the World Heritage List since 1998 and narrow-fronted houses of the 17th to 19th centuries along its streets. Then Biarritz, where Napoleon III built a summer residence for the Empress Eugénie, and Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the fishing port where Louis XIV married Maria Theresa of Spain on 9 June 1660.
Where you stay in San Sebastián
Igeldo
Hotel Akelarre
A five-star house of 22 rooms on Monte Igeldo, every one looking out to sea, with Pedro Subijana's restaurant and an adults-only spa.
Centro
Hotel María Cristina
A five-star house on the Urumea at the edge of the Parte Vieja, a short walk from La Concha, with two restaurants, a cocktail bar and river-view suites.
Day 18
Through La Rioja to the Duero
South with your driver into the Rioja Alavesa: Laguardia, a walled town on its hill with cellars beneath its streets and the painted portico of Santa María de los Reyes, and Marqués de Riscal at Elciego, the winery founded in 1858 beside Frank Gehry’s titanium-clad building, for a tour and a tasting. Then on across Castile to the Duero.
Day 19
The Ribera del Duero
A day among the estates of the Ribera del Duero, where Tempranillo, called Tinta del País here, makes the reds, with tastings at a winery or two by arrangement. On the way, the Roman villa at Baños de Valdearados, whose 66 m² mosaic floor given to Bacchus came to light in the 1972 harvest, and Peñaranda de Duero, a village under its castle, with the early 16th-century palace of the Counts of Miranda.
Day 20
Peñafiel
Peñafiel’s castle on its ridge, built in the 15th century by Pedro Girón, master of the Order of Calatrava, with the Provincial Wine Museum inside and a guided tasting; then the Plaza del Coso below it, closed by houses with wooden balconies, and lechazo, milk-fed lamb roasted in a clay dish in a wood-fired oven, for lunch. Wine has been made here for more than 2,500 years, by the Denominación de Origen’s own count.
Day 21
To Madrid airport
A last morning by the Duero, a walk among the vines or an hour in the spa, then the drive back to Madrid-Barajas with your driver, and your flight home.
Where you stay in the Duero
Sardón de Duero
Abadía Retuerta
A five-star house of 30 rooms in the restored 12th-century abbey of Santa María de Retuerta, on its own wine estate beside the Duero.
What the journey includes
From $27,279 per person
Plan this journeyYour proposal sets out the arrangements included in your trip.
- Planned with you — by Ramin Jafari, who shapes the order, the pace and the days around you; every part can change.
- Twenty nights’ accommodation — in the hotels we recommend in each place, shown with each stop.
- Private transport — transfers to and from every airport and station, and a car and driver for the road legs and the days out.
- Private guides — for the Royal Palace and the Prado, Toledo, Córdoba, Seville, the Albaicín and the Alhambra, Palma, Gaudí’s Barcelona, Girona and Bilbao.
- Tables and tickets — the monuments, the Alhambra and the Sagrada Família among them, and the restaurants on the way, reserved ahead.
- Experiences on request — flamenco, a cove by boat, the Tramuntana on foot, the pintxo route and the tastings in La Rioja and the Duero, each arranged for your dates, subject to availability.
- Support while you travel — if a transfer is delayed or a booking changes, we coordinate with the partners involved and take you through the options.
What travellers say
Some times you don't know what you're going to get online and I cannot compliment Ramin enough — this was FIRST CLASS treatment. I would most certainly use him again.
Melissa Cameron
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Guides for the route
- Madrid food and cuisine
Madrid's own dishes, where to eat, the Mercado de San Miguel and the wines around the city.
- Things to do in Seville
The Alcázar, the Cathedral, tapas, flamenco, the river, and the horses of Jerez.
- Private flamenco in Seville
A flamenco performance arranged for you alone, in the city it comes from.
- Mallorca travel guide
When to go, where to stay, the food, Palma's landmarks and three days on the island.
- Barcelona travel guide
When to go, where to stay, the food, the great buildings and three days in the city.
- San Sebastián travel guide
When to go, where to stay, the food, the sights and three days in the city.
Plan this journey
As it is set out here, or shaped around your dates, your pace and who is travelling. Tell us when you would like to go.
Plan this journeyOur Spain page
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