9-Day Highlights of Spain - Small Group 2027

Highlights

• Barcelona: At La Pau, you’ll sit down to a seasonal Catalan menu in a restaurant built around social impact. Dishes are prepared and served by young people in training, many moving on from care or disrupted schooling. Paid work, mentoring and a clear structure help them gain skills in the kitchen and dining room as they move towards independent living. Your visit directly supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities.
• Seville: The Cristina Heeren Foundation promotes the teaching and preservation of flamenco and is supported by a TreadRight Foundation grant. Meet students, learn a few basic steps and watch them perform, gaining insight into how the school trains young artists in guitar, singing and dance. Your visit directly supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education.
• Barcelona: Enjoy early access to the Palau de la Música Catalana, a Catalan Modernist concert hall known for its stained-glass skylight and sculptural detail. Take in the Lluís Millet Hall and settle into the main auditorium as an organ performance fills the room. 
• Barcelona: Explore Barcelona with a Local Expert who sets out the city’s shape from street level — the long run of Passeig de Gràcia, the sharp grid of the Eixample and the way the skyline shifts as the Sagrada Família comes into view. The route ties together the city’s Modernista detail and its ongoing architectural change.
• Peñíscola: See Peñíscola’s 14th-century castle rising above the old town, set on a limestone headland that divides the shoreline.
• Valencia: Get your bearings in Valencia’s Old City as your Travel Director points out the surviving medieval gateways and the street grid shaped by centuries of expansion.
• Seville: Explore Seville with your Local Expert, viewing the Giralda bell tower, the exterior of Seville Cathedral and the former Jewish quarter. You’ll also see María Luisa Park, laid out for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition, with its tiled fountains, pavilions and formal gardens reflecting the city’s layered architectural character.
• Córdoba: In Córdoba, you’ll join your Travel Director for a short orientation that helps fix the city on the map. Walk by the Roman bridge over the Guadalquivir, pass the old gateway towers and step into the historic center, where whitewashed houses, small squares and hidden patios show how this older part of the city fits together.
• Córdoba: Visit the Mezquita with a local historian to trace how a mosque became a cathedral. You’ll step into a forest of striped arches and columns from the original Islamic building, then see later Christian additions including the central choir and chapels.
• Madrid: Explore Madrid’s Old Quarter with a Local Expert who outlines how the district developed from a small medieval citadel into the center of Habsburg Madrid. You’ll see the compact street grid, market squares and civic buildings that shaped the early city, and trace how each layer of expansion created the foundations of the modern capital.
• Granada: Visit the Alhambra Palace with a Local Expert and walk through its courtyards, carved plasterwork and palace rooms from the Nasrid period. You’ll see how water channels, gardens and intricate detail define the complex, and how this hilltop site shaped Granada’s cultural and political story for centuries.
• Madrid: Visit the Prado Museum with an art historian who places key works within their historical setting. With your historian’s expert guidance, you’ll examine paintings by Velázquez, Goya, Titian and Rubens, noting their connection to royal patronage and the broader European tradition. Learn how the museum, founded in 1819, became a principal repository for Spain’s royal collections and major works from across the continent.
• Madrid: Sit down to dinner with your Travel Director and fellow travelers at a local restaurant.