9-Day Amazing Spain and Portugal 2027 E

Highlights

• Madrid: Join your Travel Director at 18:30 for a Welcome Dinner in a local restaurant and get to know your fellow travelers over a beautiful evening of delicious food and wine.
• Lisbon: In Belém, try pastéis de Belém: crisp layers of pastry encasing custard complete with a dusting of cinnamon. See how the pastries follow a closely guarded recipe, and are still prepared in the same bakery that has produced them since 1837. 
• Madrid: Sit down to dinner with your Travel Director and fellow travelers at a local restaurant.
• Toledo: At a Damascene workshop, meet a master artisan for an insight into this ancient craft. Witness firsthand their precision as they inlay gold and silver into iron, using a chisel and a hammer.
• 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.
• Toledo: Explore this magnificent ancient city with your Local Expert and visit the Church of Santo Tomé to see an El Greco masterpiece.
• Seville: Visit Seville Cathedral, completed in the 16th century and recognized as the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Walk through its vast nave and chapels and view the Giralda, originally built as the minaret of the 12th-century Almohad mosque. The cathedral’s scale and layered construction show how the site developed from Islamic to Christian use.
• Seville: Join a guided walk through the Santa Cruz quarter, following a street pattern shaped by Seville’s medieval Jewish community until the 14th century. You’ll navigate narrow lanes, enclosed courtyards and small plazas reflect the district’s earlier layout, with surviving architectural elements that point to the neighborhood’s social and cultural history within the wider city.
• Évora: With your Travel Director explore the ancient city of Évora and visit the fascinating Capela dos Ossos, meaning the Chapel of Bones, a chapel decorated with human remains.
• Lisbon: Explore Lisbon with a Local Expert, focusing on the Baixa district rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake and the broad Pombaline layout that shaped the Lower Town. Continue through the Belém Quarter to view landmarks linked to Portugal’s maritime era, including the Monument to the Discoveries and the Belém Tower, both positioned along the Tagus. 
• Lisbon: Visit the National Coach Museum to examine its collection of royal carriages dating from the 16th to 19th centuries. Used for state ceremonies and diplomatic events, you’ll view coaches that illustrate the shifts in artisanship, decoration and court protocol across several European courts. 
• Fátima: You’ll visit the Sanctuary of Fátima, centered on the reported apparitions of 1917. The site brings together major places of worship such as the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary and the Chapel of the Apparitions, set around a vast open square used for major pilgrimages. 
• Salamanca: See the golden stone and arcades of Plaza Mayor, and learn about the unique traditions of this historic university city. 
• Avila: Explore within the ancient walls of this unique town.
• 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.
• 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.