Spain & Portugal: Tapas & Traditions

Really good trip with a few areas of improvement! I recommend this trip. Our trip leader Hayley was fantastic and made this experience wonderful. The good: Excellent but limited included experiences with the Fado show and port wine tasting, and Valley of the Fallen tour. Great locations to visit, and the accommodation was safe and clean, with Lisbon and San Sebastián in great locations. Great to have a full day in each city. Hayley gave us excellent walking tours and suggestions for each city. The driving days had some good stops - especially Sintra! Recommend the hike up to the palace if you have decent fitness and footwear as it’s great. The dinner activity in Porto was fabulous, beautiful food and hosts Delicious food everywhere 😊 And of course a lovely tour group! The areas to improve: The bus driver wasn’t a Topdeck driver and only got us from A-B; no driving tours or chit chat. The travel days were usually full days 8-9-4-5pm or later - it would have been much better if we could start earlier and get more time in each city. Some of the hotels (especially Madrid and Barcelona) were really far away from the city centre and required Ubers or 1+ hour on public transport to get in. Should be max 30 mins walking distance otherwise we spend a lot of time trying to get transport! Optional food experiences were very exxy and could be done DIY for much cheaper. Would have been good to have some more included experiences given the tour cost. The bus got to Barcelona at 7pm on the last day after a full day of driving and the hotel is very far from the city centre - as we had a flight the next day we actually didn’t get any time at all to see the city except at our final dinner :( We didn’t realise how late the arrival would be until it was too late to change flights. Make sure you book an extra night, or preferably Topdeck should add one extra day to the tour! Otherwise there’s not much point having Barcelona on the itinerary.

Hayley was an excellent guide; somehow combing the care of a loving auntie, the adventurous nature of a friend and the knowledge of a sage.

Great trip!! From the hotels, to the optional extras and the time spent in each place was awesome. Didn't feel too rushed, the travel days weren't too bad/long and all of the group activities really helped me experience and immerse myself into the Portugese and Spanish culture

The delve deep tour was a great way to see the biggest destinations on the Iberian Peninsula and also tick off some smaller, gorgeous sites that would have easily been overlooked. So many great opportunities to see, taste, and enjoy the culture of the cities we visited. Our trip leader was super knowledgeable and made sure everyone on the tour got the most out of our experiences. The size of the group was perfect to make new friends without it being too hectic.

Awesome tour. Virginia was an amazing and knowledgeable tour guide.

The June 2024 trip was amazing! Martina was an excellent trip leader who made the trip effortlessly more enjoyable, she had great recommendations and made our travel days fun with her jokes and commentary! The trip would be made better if it was slightly longer by 2-4 days, this would allow for an extra day in Madrid, Barcelona and Porto. It would also be great to see one more city! Activity wise the meal in Segovia could be replaced with a Flamenco show in Madrid, as with a sit down meal there isn’t much time to see Segovia.

Martina was an amazing trip leader full of knowledge of all the places we visited. It was great to get information from her about everything to do around the places we visited as well as learn about the history. Whilst the city orientations were good, it would have been nice to potentially get a guide for the main cities and see a bit more with them. The temple of the fallen was great to go and see however the guide was very quiet so couldn’t hear her much so wasn’t really worth it. It would have been good to have a few more activities included or some more optional activities available as most days were free days and some additional guidance would have been nice. For example having a set night/time to go and see a flamenco show rather than organising it ourselves.

Overall great trip, the small group size was perfect, and our tour leader Monik was simply amazing, super knowledgeable, always friendly and helpful and making sure everyone was included and happy. The only suggestion I can think is for improving the trip itinerary for the drive day from Porto to Madrid as there were no sights to visit along the way, just a stop for lunch at a roadside service station near the Spain/Portugal border. Maybe worth flying for that leg instead. Also I wish I’d known to book an extra night in Barcelona at the end of the trip, as you arrive in the evening on the last day and won’t have time to do much there unless staying an extra night. Also prior to the trip it was quite difficult to contact Topdeck customer service about my booking, they did not reply to any emails, I eventually got it sorted via a phone call.

5 Star trip! Our trip leader Monik made the trip informative and lots of fun! She was knowledgeable about many different places and landmarks, kept the group engaged and made everyone feel taken care of. The trip had a perfect balance of activities and free time, lots to see and do everywhere we went

The overall layout and locations visited on the tour were great, but it would've been nice to have more inclusions (i.e walking tours) and optional activities. We had included driving tours in certain destinations, but our bus driver said he would not drive us there due to his working hours and that it was 'too busy'. As this was an inclusion in our tour package, the drivers' hours should've been factored in. He would also argue with our Tour leader about our inclusions, which made everyone feel very uneasy on the bus.