Spain has been the home of some of the world’s great artists and has museums and galleries to match. ln the cities, narrow twisting old streets suddenly open out to views og daring modern architecture, while spit-and-sawdust bars serving wine from the barrel rub shoulders with blaring, glaring discos. There are endless tracts of wild and crinkled sierra to explore, as well as some spectacularly rugged stretches of coast. Culturally, the country is littered with superb old buildings, from Roman aqueducts to Gothic cathedrals, and almost every second has a medieval castle.
May, June and September
Exploring the amazing, whimsical architecture of Gaudi’s Parc Guell in Barcelona Bargain-hunting in El Rastro flea market in Madrid Partying through the night during Valencia’s Las Fallas Pouring over the fascinating Romanesque relics of medieval Aragon at Huesca and San Juan de la Pena Visiting the wonderful Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao Sipping summertime canas (beers) and enjoying the magnificent views to the Sierra de Guadarrama at Las Vistillas Driving around and getting lost in the alpine countryside of the Navarran Pyrenees Walking the Camino de Santiago to Santiago de Compostela
Read the 17th -century novel Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, or For Whom the Bell Tolls, a terse tale of civil war by Ernest Hemingway
Listen to Andres Segovia, who established classical guitar as a genre, or flamenco guitarst Paco de Lucia
Watch Pedro Almodovar’s Todo Sobre Mi Mader (All About My Mother), which portrays the lives of an improbable collection of women
Eat home-cooked paella, or fabada asturiana (a heavy white-bean-based stew)
Drink red wine from the Ribera del Dueroregion or a Voll Damm beer
Buenos dias (good day)
Flamenco; bull-fighting; drunken Brits on lbiza; Picasso; football; the Spanish lnquisition; the Running of the Buls festival
ln Catalunya devil and dragon figures run through the streets spitting fireworks at crowds during the correfoc (fire-running). Leading gaiteros (bagpipers) are heroes in Galicia
Especially around the Fiestas de San lsidro, the chulapos and manolas of Madrid come out of the woodwork. The gents dress in their traditional short jackets and berets and the women in mantones de Manila, and put their best feet forward in a lively chotis. What is all this? The Manton de Manila is an embroidered silk shawl, which few people now wear, except during fiestas. The chotis is an oldtime working-class dance not unlike a polka.