10-Day Highlights of Northern Spain: Madrid, San Sebastian, Barcelona Tour

My wife and I have been lucky enough to travel to many places around the world, but our April 2025 journey organized by Zicasso's tour company was easily one of the best. Our agent and her team thought of every detail. All we had to do was show up and enjoy these two beautiful countries!

We went to Four cities: Lisbon, Porto, San Sebastián, and Barcelona. The itineraries were thoughtfully planned to give us great experiences without wearing us out too much. And the guides in each city were fun, knowledgeable, and engaging. The transportation was always easy and on time, and the hotels were top-notch.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip. Transport A+; guides A+; except in Barcelona; hotels B+: Madrid and Granada rooms overlooking the street were noisy—we had little sleep and an AC malfunction in one—so we needed to change rooms; food/market tours A+; cooking class A++; and the range of activities.

There were several positives in working with this travel company, including their responsiveness and providing a phone to use in the country (which was a game changer). The hotels were excellent and the tours were really good.

Our biggest challenge was with the transfers in each city. They provided the wrong train station in Madrid in our itinerary and to the driver, creating a lot of stress and out-of-pocket expense (which we are waiting on reimbursement for); a driver who could not find our hotel and we had to track him down; and difficulty navigating a train station to find a driver in a different city.

We enjoyed the trip. The guides were good, although our guide in Lisbon provided a little bit too much history. But he was very knowledgeable and we enjoyed his tours. The communication with the Zicasso company through WhatsApp was very good and they were very accommodating to upgrading our transport vehicle because our luggage was large. The food tours were good. We enjoyed all the sites that we saw. Barcelona, especially, was great.

We stayed at four hotels. Only the hotel in Porto was a disappointment. The other hotels were good and we were very comfortable. The breakfast that was served at the various accommodations varied in quality, but the breakfast buffet in Lisbon was extremely good. The hotel in Porto was definitely not a four-star facility. The local airline definitely does not have its act together. When we left Barcelona to come home, the line for the airline was about five or six times the length of every other line. I would have definitely been willing to pay a higher amount for a business class seat in order to use the very short line in the Porto airport.

Zicasso’s travel company was great! We were a group of six: me and my wife, a three-year-old (who turned four on the last day of the trip), a one-and-a-half-year-old, and my parents (both nearing 70), traveling from Southern California, USA.

Due to various work/life issues, we were only able to squeeze out time for a one-week trip (weekend to weekend) before we had to be back home. Despite these challenges (varying ages and time limitations), we still wanted to do a once-in-a-lifetime, multi-generational family trip where we could all spend time together in Spain, make memories, learn about a different culture, and just have something that we could all look back on with fondness.

Through Zicasso, we connected with the team at this travel company, and it was the best decision ever. From start to finish, they helped us craft a trip that was specifically tailored to the needs of our group. We were traveling with babies and grandparents, but we still wanted to hit the ground running and do as much as we could, cramming in as many food and sightseeing experiences as possible. They presented us with ideas and suggestions, gave us their thoughts when we asked for their opinion (including on feasibility), answered all of our questions, and were always super-responsive. We said it, they handled it.

We didn’t have to do things like calculate when to eat lunch in order to make it in time to the next event because they handled all of the reservations and scheduling, while factoring in distances and realistic timeframes. On parts of the trip that required traveling by car, the drivers showed up with spacious vans that included baby car seats that they knew how to set up quickly and efficiently.

The team took out all of the stress of planning a trip, so we basically just had to show up and everything was smoothly set in place. This was super-important for us, since traveling with babies and grandparents could have been very tough and hectic, but we were frankly in awe of how smooth everything was once we got to Spain.

While in Spain, they were available for contact and questions 24/7 if any issues came up. For example, it took longer than expected to get through customs when we landed, which resulted in a slight delay to our first sightseeing event, but all of it was smoothly resolved through chat communications with the team, who contacted the various drivers and vendors in real time so everything was seamless.

The tour guides they work with were also all wonderful and quite expert in their knowledge, and all seemed to have VIP status that allowed us to move through huge crowds and get into places smoothly. We felt super-supported knowing we had a large team behind us during our time in Spain.

We all had a great, smooth time and still daydream about our time there. We are worried that future trips will be less enjoyable because we have to compare them with our wonderful trip to Spain.