Spain is a country that fast becomes an addiction for the first-time visitor. Maybe you just wanted a beach holiday, a walking tour or a city break? Well, it won’t be long before you’re hooked on something quite different - the wild celebration of some local fiesta, perhaps, or the otherworldly architecture of Barcelona. Even in the best-known places to visit - from Madrid to the costas, from the Pyrenees to the Moorish cities of the south - there are attractions at every turn, whether it’s a hip Basque restaurant, the wild landscapes of the central plains, or cutting-edge galleries in the industrial north. Before long, you’ll notice there’s not just one Spain but many - as the Spaniards say - "Las Españas".
Partly, this is down to an almost obsessive regionalism. In the 1970s, seventeen autonomous regions were created, each with its own government, budget and cultural ministry. Although you are visiting Spain, your hosts may be adamant that you’re actually visiting Catalunya, and will point to a whole range of differences in language, culture and artistic traditions, not to mention social attitudes and politics. The old days of a unified nation, governed with a firm hand from Madrid, seem to have gone forever, as the separate kingdoms that made up the original Spanish state reassert themselves in an essentially federal structure. Does any of this matter to you as a visitor? Not really. Few tourists visit Spain to immerse themselves in the contemporary politics.
To get the best out of a visit to this amazingly diverse country, you’ll want to look beyond the clichés of paella and sangría. Even in the most touristy resorts of the Costa del Sol, you’ll find an authentic bar or restaurant where the locals eat, and a village not far away where an age-old bullfighting tradition owes nothing to tourism. The large cities of the north, from Barcelona to Bilbao, have reinvented themselves as essential cultural destinations - and they don’t all close down for siesta. As for culinary inspiration, Spain now has some of the most acclaimed chefs and innovative restaurants in the world. Despite the current economic uncertainty, the country sees itself very differently from a generation ago. You’ll be very pleasantly surprised!
Where to go
Barcelona, for many, has the edge, thanks to its extraordinary architecture, the lively promenade and five kilometres of sandy beach. Madrid is less pretty but claims as many devotees, with contemporary art museums, carefree bars and summer cafés. Seville is the home of flamenco and all the clichés of southern Spain; Valencia, the vibrant capital of the Levante, has a thriving arts scene and nightlife; and Bilbao is unmissable, thanks to the astonishing Guggenheim.
Not only are Spain’s modern towns lively and exciting, they are literally monumental. Spain’s history has added an architectural backdrop that varies from one region to another, due to occupation by Romans, Visigoths and Moors. Touring Castilla y León, for example, you can’t avoid the vast cathedrals and hundreds of reconquista castles, while the gorgeous medieval university city of Salamanca captivates all who visit. In northerly, mountainous Asturias and the Pyrenees, tiny Romanesque churches dot the hillsides and villages, while in Galicia all roads lead to the ancient and heartbreakingly beautiful cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela. Andalucía has the great mosques and Moorish palaces of Granada, Seville and Córdoba; Castilla-La Mancha boasts the superbly preserved medieval capital of Toledo; while the harsh landscape of Extremadura cradles ornate conquistador towns built with riches from the New World.
The Spanish landscape, too, holds just as much fascination and variety. The evergreen estuaries of Galicia could hardly be more different from the high plains of Castile, or the gulch-like desert landscapes of Almería. Spain has some of the finest mountains in Europe, with superb walking in a dozen or more protected ranges or sierras - especially the Picos de Europa and the Pyrenees. There are still brown bears and lynx in the wild, as well as boar, storks and eagles, while a near-five-thousand-kilometre coastline means great opportunities for fishing, whale-watching and dolphin-spotting.
And finally, the beaches - one of Spain’s greatest attractions, and where modern tourism to the country began in the 1960s. Here, too, there’s a lot more variety than the stereotypical images might suggest. Long tracts of coastline have certainly been massively over-developed, but delightful pockets remain, even along the biggest, concrete-clad costas. There are superb windsurfing waters around Tarifa and some decidedly low-key resorts along the Costa de la Luz. On the Costa Brava, in the northeast in Catalunya, the string of idyllic coves between Palamos and Begur is often overlooked, while the cooler Atlantic coastline boasts the surfing beaches of Cantabria and Asturias. Offshore, the Balearic Islands - Ibiza, Formentera, Mallorca and Menorca - offer superb sands.
Title Image Credit: Les Haines (www.flickr.com) (Image Cropped)