The Grand Spanish Tour

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.