• 3 Dinner (D)
• 9 Breakfast (B)

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

• Bilbao: Visit the architectural landmark Guggenheim Museum and see works of contemporary art by Spanish and international artists.
• Bilbao: Join your Local Specialist for sightseeing and take the funicular to Mount Artxanda to enjoy panoramic views of the city below.

• San Sebastián: Enjoy an evening of pintxos, dining with locals in this Basque tradition. Your delicious dinner includes a wide variety of finger food delicacies, each with their own flavor, flair and presentation.
• Madrid: Sit down to dinner with your Travel Director and fellow travelers at a local restaurant.

• 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.

Survey the perfect curve of La Concha Bay from Monte Igueldo, where the Cantabrian light skims the water and the city’s belle-époque facades ring the shoreline. Feel the sea breeze and frame sweeping photographs of Santa Clara Island and the graceful promenade.

Continue on a guided walking tour through the Old Quarter, where narrow lanes spill into Plaza de la Constitución. Learn how its numbered balconies once formed bullfight stands, and trace Basque identity through architecture, language, and lively neighborhood life.

Taste your way through Lo Viejo on a progressive dinner of pintxos—artful small bites pinned to bread or plated to share. Move from bar to bar as chefs riff on anchovies, salt cod, peppers, and seasonal produce, pairing each mouthful with a crisp pour of Txakoli.

Join locals at the counter, clink glasses, and swap favorites as you explore culinary creativity rooted in tradition. This is dining with locals at its most convivial, where the Old Quarter’s taverns turn a simple evening into a flavorful city ritual.

Visit Burgos to view the soaring spires of Burgos Cathedral, a French Gothic masterpiece and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Admire its traceried portals and sculpted kings, an exterior that reads like stone lace against the Castilian sky.

Set on the historic Camino de Santiago, the cathedral reflects centuries of devotion and royal patronage. Pause to appreciate the craftsmanship—the lace-like stonework, canopies, and pinnacles—that made Burgos a beacon of faith and art in medieval Spain.

Explore Madrid with a guided tour of Madrid’s Old Quarter, where tight-knit streets open into Plaza Mayor and arcaded squares that tell the story of Habsburg Madrid. Trace how a fortified hilltop evolved into a cosmopolitan capital through markets, guilds, and royal ceremony.

Hear how city-making accelerated with enlightened planning and Bourbon-era boulevards. Your Local Specialist highlights architectural contrasts and hidden corners, from convent walls to cast-iron balconies, revealing the social and political layers beneath the city’s everyday rhythm.

Experience the Prado Museum in the company of an art historian guide. Engage closely with Spanish and European masters—Velázquez, Goya, Titian, and Rubens—while learning how court painters shaped image and power in Madrid.

Discover how the museum’s royal collection, founded in 1819, grew into one of the world’s greatest picture galleries. Unravel iconography, technique, and patronage as your guide connects brushwork to history, from courtly ritual to revolution and the birth of modern sensibilities.

Walk Segovia’s UNESCO-listed old town with a Local Specialist to study the Roman aqueduct and its astonishing procession of granite arches. Learn how mountain water crossed the plateau to sustain a thriving city for nearly two millennia.

Continue to the turreted Alcázar of Segovia, whose hilltop silhouette recalls royal pageantry and defensive might. Hear tales of Castilian monarchs and craftsmen as you take in tiled halls, stout walls, and views across the rugged Meseta.

Visit the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Frank Gehry’s temple to twentieth-century imagination, sheathed in titanium curves beside the Nervión river. Move through light-filled galleries to encounter contemporary art by Spanish and international artists.

Trace Bilbao’s transformation from shipyards to culture as you explore permanent installations and headline exhibitions—perhaps pausing at Jeff Koons’ Puppy outside or Richard Serra’s site-specific work within. This Optional Experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Join your Local Specialist and ride the funicular to Mount Artxanda for panoramic views of Bilbao. Survey the Nervión River, historic bridges, and the gleaming Guggenheim as old industry and new design weave across the valley.

Learn how thoughtful urban regeneration reshaped neighborhoods and the revitalized riverfront. A perfect moment for wide-angle photos and city orientation. This Optional Experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Cross into France to explore Saint-Jean-de-Luz, a fishing town framed by arcaded squares and half-timbered houses. Visit the Church of St. John the Baptist, where Louis XIV’s marriage to Maria Theresa sealed a royal alliance in 1660.

Stroll harborfront lanes scented with sea air and butter-rich Basque pastries—macarons have deep roots here—while learning about corsair history and seaside traditions. This Optional Experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

See the capital glow on an evening illuminations drive past the Gran Vía, the stately Cibeles and Neptune fountains, and the Royal Palace’s elegant facade. Madrid’s architecture and fountains take on a theatrical mood under the night sky.

Hear stories that link squares and boulevards to royal pageantry and modern nightlife, with chances to pause for photos and reflection along the way. This Optional Experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Discover Barcelona with a guided panoramic tour along the elegant Passeig de Gràcia, passing Modernista icons toward Gaudí’s visionary basilica, the Sagrada Família. Step inside to see a stone forest of branching columns and stained-glass light that washes the nave in color, revealing Gaudí’s nature-inspired forms and sacred symbolism.

Gain context on the Eixample grid and the flowering of Catalan Modernisme that reshaped the city. If interior access is restricted during your visit, you’ll explore the UNESCO-listed Hospital de Sant Pau and admire Sagrada Família’s intricate facades from outside—still a masterclass in craft and ambition.

Dine at La Pau, a social enterprise where a seasonal Catalan menu is prepared and served by young people in training. Savor market-fresh dishes—think seafood, escalivada, and crema catalana—served in a warm, contemporary setting that foregrounds skill-building and hospitality.

Your participation directly supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities. Hear how structured mentoring and paid work create new pathways for independence, while you enjoy thoughtful cuisine that reflects Barcelona’s creative culinary spirit.

Insight Vacations