Join your fellow travellers for dinner at a local restaurant in Barcelona. Share a final meal together in the Catalan capital and raise a toast to the people and places encountered across Spain and Portugal.

Unlike a routine meal, this hosted gathering is a chance to exchange favourite memories and mark the end of the journey as a group. Barcelona provides a lively setting for the closing evening.

Taste pastéis de Belém in Lisbon’s Belém quarter: crisp pastry shells filled with custard, traditionally finished with a dusting of cinnamon. Enjoy the speciality from the bakery that has made it since 1837.

The closely guarded recipe is part of Belém’s culinary identity. Sampling the pastries where they originated connects a simple, freshly baked treat with nearly two centuries of neighbourhood tradition.

• 5 Dinner (D)
• 14 Breakfast (B)
• 2 Lunch (L)

• 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.
• 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.

Insight Vacations

• Hand sanitizer is freely available on board for you to use throughout the day.

• Business class coach with extended leg room
• Top-rated dining, from farm-to-table to local restaurants
• 4 & 5-star stays

Meet your Travel Director and fellow travellers over dinner at a local Madrid restaurant. Share typical madrileño flavours and wine while getting acquainted with the group in a relaxed setting.

Madrid’s dining culture is built around conversation as much as food. This hosted evening offers a welcoming introduction to the Spanish capital and the people you’ll travel with across the Iberian Peninsula.

Explore Madrid’s historic neighbourhoods with a Local Expert, tracing the capital’s beginnings in its Old Quarter. See the compact streets, squares and civic buildings that grew around the early city.

Learn how a small medieval settlement became the centre of Habsburg Madrid. The district’s street pattern reveals a different scale of city life from the broad avenues and grand buildings of the modern capital.

Visit the Prado Museum with an art historian to examine works by Velázquez, Goya, Titian and Rubens. Expert commentary places the paintings in the context of royal patronage and the wider European artistic tradition.

Founded in 1819, the Prado holds masterpieces drawn from Spain’s royal collections. Looking closely at the artists’ subjects and techniques offers a deeper understanding of the courtly and cultural worlds that shaped their work.

Walk Segovia’s medieval streets with a Local Expert and view the hilltop Alcázar, a fortified royal complex documented from the 12th century. See the city’s imposing Roman aqueduct and its tiers of granite arches.

Segovia brings Roman engineering, medieval town planning and royal history into close view. Your expert explains how the aqueduct carried water into the city and how successive eras shaped its historic centre.

Explore Salamanca with a Local Expert, taking in the arcaded Plaza Mayor, the cathedral and historic university buildings. Look for elaborate Plateresque detail across the city’s warm sandstone facades.

Salamanca’s university was founded in the 13th century, establishing the city as a major European centre of learning. The golden-hued stone gives its streets and squares a distinctive character, particularly when it catches the light.

Visit the wine cellars of Vila Nova de Gaia, across the Douro from Porto. Walk among ageing casks and taste port wine while learning the differences between styles such as Ruby, Tawny and Vintage.

Gaia has been a centre of port ageing and storage since the 18th century. Discover how wines from the Douro Valley are shaped by barrel conditions, blending and the traditions of the export houses established along the riverbank.

Explore Porto’s riverside cityscape, taking in colourful houses, tile-adorned churches and the bridges spanning the Douro. The city’s steep streets and waterfront reveal its close relationship with trade and the river.

Porto is internationally known for port wine, but its architectural character is equally memorable. Look for glazed azulejo tiles on historic buildings and the contrasting forms of its bridges above the river.

Explore the Sanctuary of Fátima, Portugal’s best-known pilgrimage site. View the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, the Chapel of the Apparitions and the broad esplanade where large gatherings take place.

The sanctuary developed following reports of Marian apparitions in 1917. Its open spaces and places of worship convey the scale of the pilgrimage tradition and the site’s continuing importance to visitors from around the world.

Walk within the medieval walls of Óbidos, following narrow lanes past whitewashed houses and small churches. Sample locally made ginja, a cherry liqueur closely associated with the town.

Óbidos retains the enclosed street pattern of a fortified settlement and became a traditional gift to Portuguese queens in the Middle Ages. Its intimate lanes make the tasting a fitting introduction to a distinctive local custom.

Discover Lisbon with a Local Expert, exploring the spacious avenues of the Lower Town and the Belém quarter beside the Tagus. View the Monument to the Discoveries and Belém Tower, landmarks connected to Portugal’s maritime history.

Learn how the Baixa district was rebuilt with an ordered street plan after the devastating 1755 earthquake. Belém’s riverside setting recalls the era when Portuguese voyages linked the city to routes across the oceans.

Visit Lisbon’s National Coach Museum to examine a collection of horse-drawn royal carriages dating from the 16th to 19th centuries. Look closely at their craftsmanship, decoration and ceremonial details.

Used for state occasions and diplomatic events, the coaches reflect changing court customs across Europe. Their scale and ornamentation offer a tangible view of how royalty presented power and status in public.

Walk through Seville’s Santa Cruz quarter with a Local Expert, navigating narrow lanes, small plazas and enclosed courtyards. The district’s close-knit layout invites a slower look at one of the city’s most historic neighbourhoods.

Santa Cruz was shaped in part by Seville’s medieval Jewish community. Your guide places its surviving street pattern in context, revealing layers of social and cultural history behind the neighbourhood’s present-day atmosphere.

Step inside Seville Cathedral, the world’s largest Gothic cathedral, to see its vast nave and chapels. View the Giralda, the bell tower that began as the minaret of a 12th-century mosque.

Completed in the 16th century, the cathedral stands on a site whose architecture records the transition from Islamic to Christian Seville. It is also the final resting place of Christopher Columbus.

Learn basic flamenco steps at Seville’s Cristina Heeren Foundation and watch students perform. Meet young artists training in dance, singing and guitar, gaining an insight into the practice behind this expressive Andalusian art form.

The foundation teaches and preserves flamenco for future generations. This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® visit supports its educational work, making the lesson and performance a direct encounter with a living cultural tradition.

Explore the Rock of Gibraltar with a Local Expert and visit St. Michael’s Cave, known for its limestone formations. Look out for Gibraltar’s Barbary macaques and take in views towards the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Spanish coast.

The Rock has long been associated with one of the ancient Pillars of Hercules. Its dramatic position at the entrance to the Mediterranean gives the visit a striking geographical and historical setting.

Visit a rural olive mill in Andalusia and taste a selection of local oils with freshly made bread. Learn how harvest timing, soil and the age of the trees can influence their flavours.

Olive cultivation is a longstanding part of the region’s landscape and food culture. Tasting the oils side by side brings out their differences and offers a closer look at an ingredient central to everyday Andalusian cooking.

Walk through Alfarnatejo, a small whitewashed Andalusian village set among mountain scenery. See its town centre and 18th-century Iglesia del Santo Cristo de Cabrilla before sharing a home-cooked lunch with a local family.

In a small group, enjoy dishes made with fresh regional produce and conversation with your hosts. The visit offers a personal view of how food and hospitality are woven into daily life in rural southern Spain.

Explore the Alhambra with a Local Expert, discovering palace rooms, courtyards, fountains and gardens. Look closely at the intricate carved plasterwork and stone details of this hilltop complex above Granada.

Developed under the Nasrid rulers from the 13th century, the Alhambra was both a fortified seat of power and a place of extraordinary artistic refinement. Its carefully designed water features and ornament reveal the sophistication of Andalusi architecture.

Get your bearings in Valencia’s Old City as your Travel Director points out its surviving medieval gateways and historic street pattern. See how the older city contrasts with the contemporary forms of the City of Arts and Sciences.

Valencia’s streets reflect centuries of expansion and changing architectural tastes. This orientation highlights the landmarks and urban layers that give the Mediterranean city its distinctive character.

Meet a chef in a family-run Valencia restaurant for a demonstration of how local paella is made. See how the pan’s heat, rice, stock and order of ingredients contribute to the finished dish, then sit down to enjoy it for dinner.

Paella has its roots in the Valencia region. Tasting the result—including its prized socarrat crust—makes this a hands-on introduction to one of Spain’s best-known food traditions.

View Peñíscola’s 14th-century castle rising above the old town on a limestone headland. Its position between stretches of Mediterranean shoreline creates one of the coast’s most recognisable historic silhouettes.

The fortress is closely associated with the town’s medieval past and appeared in the film El Cid. Seeing it from the coast reveals how naturally defended its setting is, with the sea framing the walled settlement below.

Visit a local bodega in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia for a tasting of cava paired with a light lunch. Learn how the sparkling wine is made using the traditional method, with a second fermentation in the bottle.

The vineyards around this Catalan town have supplied cava producers since the 19th century. Discover how time spent ageing on the lees contributes to the wine’s texture and character as you compare what is in your glass.

Explore Barcelona with a Local Expert, travelling along Passeig de Gràcia and through the Eixample’s geometric streets. Visit Gaudí’s Sagrada Família to see its tree-like columns, soaring vaults and coloured light filtering through stained glass.

The route connects Barcelona’s Modernista architecture with its evolving skyline. If special events or ticket availability prevent entry to the basilica, the visit instead includes the Art Nouveau Hospital de Sant Pau and an expert-led exterior view of the Sagrada Família.

Dine at a family-run Lisbon restaurant known for traditional Portuguese seafood. This optional hosted meal offers a chance to explore local cooking in a setting centred on the country’s close connection to the sea.

Portugal’s Atlantic coastline has long shaped its food traditions, and seafood remains a fixture of restaurant tables. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour; the specific dishes may vary.

Explore the Portuguese Riviera on an optional excursion from Lisbon. Discover the coastal atmosphere that has drawn surfers and holidaymakers, as well as royalty, to this stretch of shoreline.

Atlantic scenery and a long-standing resort culture distinguish the Riviera from Lisbon’s historic centre. The excursion is at additional cost and bookable on tour; the supplied itinerary does not specify individual stops or included admissions.

Visit Seville’s Pilatos Palace on an optional excursion to admire its architectural elegance. Look for the blend of decorative traditions that gives this historic residence its distinctive Andalusian character.

Also known as the Casa de Pilatos, the palace is noted for its courtyards and richly detailed interiors. This visit offers a closer look at Seville beyond its cathedral and old streets. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Explore the Alcázar of Seville and nearby Plaza América on an optional excursion. Encounter the palace complex’s layered architectural heritage and see the pavilions associated with the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition.

The contrast between the Alcázar’s centuries-old royal setting and the exposition-era plaza reveals two distinct chapters of Seville’s history. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.