Madrid Tours in October 2027

I loved the beautiful scenery from beginning to end and enjoyed learning about Spain's history. The group dinners were great for providing merriment and a taste of the local food and vibe. In particular, I loved the dinner at the restaurant with the tenors. I feel this is not something I would have found had I gone on my own. Our guide, Dan, provided a wealth of information and humor. Loved it!

Since we were not familiar with Spain we chose to take the optional tours. We were glad we did since we saw so much more of Spain than if we went on our own.

I loved the tour through the southern part of Spain Our guide Mercedes was excellent as was our driver Jorge We definitely went on back roads to see out of the way places and tastings such as wine, sherry and top quality ham after being shown the process from start to finish Of course we stayed in central locations in the old quarters of the major cities and learnt the history going back to the Romans

My fellow travelers made this trip a wonderful experience. Some of the hotel accommodations should be reviewed for comfort/sound issues and breakfast options. Also recommend that guides on this excursion should be trained in first aid. We had an incident on a hike and luckily we had a paramedic on this trip with us. This was the first time our trip leader led this particular adventure. She did a great job of adjusting to circumstances and helped to make the trip enjoyable.

I will start with a couple of small things that meant a lot to me. I had been travelling all day and arrived a Madrid Airport around 11pm local time to be met with Alex our guide who had a taxi waiting for me. He ensured the hotel checkin went very well. Everyone on the Camino was incredibly friendly if anyone was in trouble everyone came running to help. I mentioned above about being met at the airport and everything going smoothly it was the same for the whole trip. The hotels were all first class, the staff could not have been nicer. I felt that we were given the freedom we needed to experience the Camino with the support of a guide there in case anything went wrong. We formed a good group who got on really well. I can see why the pilgrimage is rated so highly, the scenery was excellent, the churches were fantastic along with some of the historic towns and cities. Something which surprised me about the Camino was the number of single women walking on their own. The fact that they feel that it is safe to do so should be a source of pride to the Spanish people. Everyone I talked to who completed the Camino took away what they needed from it.

Good tour guide. Too much adding pax and changing bus. Cause confusions when original passengers are not in the bus and additional passengers came onboard and occupy seats used by existing passengers. Hotels rooms are ok but a couple of them have poorly maintained bath facilities. A couple of hotels are not conveniently located.