We have had so many people asking about our trip itinerary and how we planned and picked everything. I'm going to do my best to share as much as I can to be helpful to anyone who needs the info. I'll tell you what....I'll be jealous! This was a trip of a lifetime. It was a dream. It was so much fun and magical and amazing. All words we used so many times throughout our time there.
The details of our trip will be spread out over several blog posts. This initial post will just be the itinerary and then I'll go into more detail of each location individually. We were gone for three weeks and it was a FULL three weeks.
Alan and I wanted to keep our itinerary open and flexible just in case we changed our minds or needed more time or less time in certain areas. This worked highly in our favor as you'll see as I explain more about our trip. Be careful with this sort of plan though. We knew we weren't going during a peek season so booking flights or hotels last minute were completely fine and affordable.
So....HERE GOES!!
We flew into Barcelona, Spain and spent three days and three nights there.
The morning of day four, we took a train to Madrid. We spent two days in Madrid with a day trip to Toledo. It was easy to take a bus from Madrid to Toledo and we got back easily through the same bus system. The transport through Spain is amazing and an affordable way to get around.
We flew from Madrid to Lisbon, Portugal early the next day and because of the hour time change literally lost no time. We spent three days and three nights in Lisbon with a day trip to Sintra. We rode the train from Lisbon to Sintra and back in the same day. The trip was only about 45 minutes one way.
Our original plan was to spend a couple of days down in the Algarve then go back through Spain to Sevilla then ride a ferry down through Morocco....but as we were researching Morocco, we were discovering that the travel time and distances were way more complicated than we had initially thought. So, we decided to cut our time in Portugal a little short and completely cut out going back to Spain so we had plenty of time in Morocco. We rented a car to drive down to Salema and spend an evening there! It was definitely a spontaneous trip, (an expensive, spontaneous trip..) But we had a very relaxing evening on the beach and ate seafood and made memories. But be forewarned...The freeway has several tolls. We spent around $60 just on freeway tolls. So if you have enough time to make it worth it, spend a few days down in the Algarve.
Back to Lisbon we went and we flew from Lisbon to Marrakesh, Morocco! We spent three days and three nights in Marrakesh then took a two day three night desert tour from Marrakesh to Fez!
Our tour guide dropped us off in Fez where we spent two nights.
After Fez, we took a bus from Fez to Chefchaoen. This is where our trip was rushed a bit. The bus ride was around four hours. We arrived in Chefchaoen in the mid afternoon and just spent an evening there. We had to get up early the next day to head to Casablanca where our flight was leaving. The bus ride was around six hours. We didn't realize that the airport was fourty minutes out of town so we didn't even end up doing anything but hang out at our hotel in Casablanca. If we could change things, we would not have flown out of Casablanca. In fact, we felt that Casablanca could be taken out all together.
And....there you have it! Starting out, we had our flight to Barcelona, our hotel in Barcelona, and our return flight from Casablanca. That's it! We planned everything else as we went. We had researched a bunch before we went so we knew what was around. At the recommendation of my aunt, we purchased Rick Steves books for Spain and Portugal and they were very helpful. But, Alan and I also realized some of our favorite things ended up being places we just ran into! Most of our favorite restaurants were that way. We stayed in a couple hotels that were recommended in his books but we also used trip adviser a lot for good recommendations on those too. I will share all the accommodations in future posts with each location. For Morocco, we had no books haha. We were lucky to have very helpful hotel owners and literally had a blast winging it. I am lucky to have my best friend and literally the most amazing travel partner as a husband.
To be continued!! Coming next....Barcelonaaaaaaaaa
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You just made my day! Let me know if you're a new visitor or a new follower...I'd love to check out your blog! Hey, and I also speak Portuguese and a little Spanish! Beijos!!