AIBU to insist that you recommend me a honeymoon

[churchthecat]

Spamming AIBU for traffic.

We want to go on honeymoon for 2 weeks next summer. We're thinking Spain/Italy as we wont be massively flush with cash next year, but open to further out suggestions.

Requirements:

Within an hour of a beach.
Interesting architecture (we love Barcelona)
Museums/churches/history
Lots of good restaurants
Not too mental/rammed with a million tourists (i.e Rome/Florence) but with stuff going on, not too quiet.
Live music if possible

What amazing Spanish/Italian places would you recommend?

I’d recommend Puglia in Italy and Andalusia in Spain. But if you’re on a budget you might be better of going further afield, flights might be more but accommodation/food/entertainment etc is cheaper. Maybe Greece or Morocco?

Someone else in RL suggested Puglia but I don't know much about it. What is it like?

Combination of Granada, Cordoba, Ronda, Malaga, Seville, Cadiz, Nerja and white villages, eg Frigliana or Mijas.

Fits your brief but will be very very hot in the summer. We flew to Malaga, had a couple of days in nearby mountains, couple of days in Granada and then 4 days in Seville which is good for a day trip to Cordoba, all done by train/coach except the first couple of days in the mountains when we had a hire car to walk on El Caminito del Rey.

Seville for sure!

I know it isn't Spain or Italy but have you considered Portugal? We stayed in a hotel for our honeymoon just outside albuferia and the old town there is lovely, there's tours you can do to loads of places like a jeep safari to the towns in the hills and there's beaches everywhere!
Also there's wild dolphin boat tours and you can swim with them at zoo marine. We're going back as we couldn't do everything!
The food is amazing there too and there isn't that many tourists and the majority of tourists are German so it's not like Benidorm or something.

From experience Italy is really expensive just a heads up, the food and everything.

Not massively flush, have you thought about Croatia, Bulgaria, even Romania has beaches?

I love the lakes in Italy, particularly Garda.

Amalfi coast in Italy? Beautiful coastal scenery and beaches, near Pompeii and Herculaneum for history. Naples and Vesuvius are within reach for a day trip, as is Capri by boat.

Sardinia! It’s the most beautiful island! Corsica is also lovely. If you want to stick to mainland Spain or italy then Seville or Puglia are nice

I was going to suggest Portugal too, but Porto. It fits all your requirements and is a beautiful city. Every place we ate, whether it was cheap eats on paper plates or top end spendy, was fantastic.

What about Lake Garda?

Italian Riveria

fly to Genoa loads of history cinque terre villages beaches just inland loads of history architecture etc
beware of august because the rest of Italy shuts down and decamps but June july would be great

What about the Villa Relais Petrischio in Cortana, Tuscany? Great base for exploring Tuscany and you could drive to the beaches of Castiglione Della Pescaia.

Sicily? Great weather, beaches, historical towns and cheaper than most of Italy,

Porto is fantastic, but a fortnight would be pushing it. I'd do Porto, then Douro valley and then Lisbon.

Ooh, Sicily also fantastic, but you will need a hire car, and if it gets stolen like mine did, you will find that Europcar's theft insurance has major exclusions in relation to parts of Sicily and it will cost you thousands. Yes, I am still bitter.

Sloveina-Ljubljana is beautiful and Lake Bled is beautiful.

Easy Jet used to fly there or maybe fly to Trieste in Italy if cheaper flight as everything is accessible by car.

Slovenia

Sicily good too- really diverse scenery across Island.

Thanks these all sound great!

We love Lake Garda but have been many times so wanted to try somewhere we haven't been.

Seville looks great actually!

Sicily is beautiful - Palermo with its lively markets,stunning elegant Taormina, look up Cefalu which is a little gem (plus you can take a ferry to the Aeolian islands from nearby, Salina and Lipari are gorgeous). Syracuse/Ortygia has fantastic history and not far there’s a little village called Marzamemi which we absolutely loved (google images, you won’t be disappointed). Then onto Ragusa (again amazing history) and Modica. If you hire a car from Palermo (we used both Avis and Europcar and we had full insurance including theft cover), you can circle the whole island in 2 weeks, perhaps a little stop in Marsala/Trapani on the way back to Palermo, again you can jump on a ferry to the Favignana. Nowhere was expensive apart from maybe Taormina and they sometimes have live concerts in the amphitheater.

I’ve ran out of adjectives describing Sicily so I’ll just rattle places in Puglia - Polignano a Mare for the whitewashed village feel and beach, Ostuni which will forever have a piece of my heart, Bari for the old town (bit touristy but still has that unmistakable southern Italian spirit), Alberobello (again touristy but kind of got to see it if you’re in Puglia), Locorotondo, Lecce for the architecture (also known as Florence of the south), down to Otranto, worth it just for a walk on the windswept promenade, Taranto has some great beach bars with (sometimes live) music. And if you got time you can add a little trip to Matera - amazing, unbelievable place.

Seville is bloody lovely but I think you may be bored for two weeks.

I would go to Amalfi or Ravello. Amazing cathedrals and utterly beautiful. Beaches (not the best in the world but usable) and loads of stuff to do like Pompeii, Herculaneum, Capri, Vesuvius, Sorrento. If I married again I would probably honeymoon in Ravello. It's very romantic

Oh yes! Sicily too! Taormina is so beautiful.

Another vote for the Amalfi Coast/ Sorrento, it's so beautiful and the food is amazing. If I could I would go back every year (without children!)