VISIT PREMIER CITIES

Madrid

Situated in the centre of the country the capital, Madrid, is a city of over three million people and a crossroad for rail, road and air travel. Its altitude of 660 metres gives rise to a temperature profile of cold winters and hot summers, making spring and autumn the best times to visit. Those who can escape from Madrid during August make for the cooler north or go south to the Mediterranean.

Despite the climate, the capital city has developed its own unique personality. It boasts the Parque del Retiro, a world famous area of leafy paths and avenues, a royal palace and grand public squares. Its museums are filled with Spain’s historic treasures. The Museo del Prado contains the world’s greatest assembly of Spanish painting, particularly the works of Velazquez and Goya. It also houses impressive foreign collections.

Madrid is a city that offers the best in shopping facilities including availability of the latest designer clothes sold in elegant up-market stores. There are food markets throughout the city. The centuries-old Rastro, open every Sunday, is one of the world’s greatest flea markets.

There is a good choice of music; classical, jazz and rock competing with Madrid’s own comic style opera known as zarzuela. Saturday night starts in the cafés, moves to the tapas bars, restaurants or clubs, and continues throughout the night, adding to the city’s high level of traffic noise.

Barcelona

Looking for premier city life? Then this unquestionably is the place. One of the Mediterranean’s busiest ports, it is much more than the capital of Catalonia. Culturally, commercially and in sport it not only rivals Madrid, but also, rightfully, considers itself on a par with the greatest European cities. The success of the Olympic Games confirmed this to the world. It is always open to outside influences because of its location on the coast and its proximity to the French border.

Barcelona is a city with impeccable style and vitality, demonstrated by the very best of Catalan, Spanish and International fashion design and complemented by a stunning live arts scene: Barcelona regularly plays host to some of the world’s best musicians. Las Ramblas is the most famous street in Spain. It is busy round the clock, especially in the evenings and at weekends. News stands, caged birds, flower stalls, tarot readers, musicians and mime artists throng the wide, tree shaded, central walkway.

GO NORTH

The concrete chain from Catalonia to Gibraltar is all but complete, with barely a missing link. In places it is low-rise and low-key, backed by orange groves and as distinctly Spanish as it was before the builders arrived. But in general, in summer, the beaches are packed, the sun is merciless and night-time heat makes an insomniac of even the deepest sleeper. The answer is to head north. A trip to forgotten Asturias brings immeasurable relief. It is a land straight from the pages of a fairy tale. The mountains are fierce, sitting close to the coast: perhaps put there by some imaginative storyteller. The foothills behind the cliffs are so green, the cows that graze in them so picture-perfect, the woodlands and vegetable patches so ornate.

Most Spaniards, long term visitors and nearly all of Spain’s new residents go north at some time to the Costa Verde –Green Spain. ‘Get away from the Costas’ is the cry. Increasing numbers of people are discovering the deep green landscapes, the solitude of the mountains and the quiet sandy beaches of northern Spain. The grass really is greener on Spain’s Costa Verde, where the lush scenery, quiet beaches and delicous local cider provide an escape from the summer madness for people in the know.

The most obvious attraction is a group of mountains called the Picos de Europa that straddles two communities of Austurias and Cantabria. A vast fortress of rock and snow, these mountains, set in a national park, offer excellent rock climbing and good hiking, but in winter, when covered in snow, they are extremely dangerous.

The Asturians eat extraordinary bowls of rich bean and sausage stews, and drink cider for breakfast, lunch and supper. The cider is poured from bottles held high above the head in one hand, into a glass held well below the waist in the other, eyes looking neither up nor down, but strictly dead ahead.

Trawlers anchored in harbours leave no doubt that many locals still look to the sea for their livelihood. Likewise, menus pinned outside the many eateries list shrimps, giant marine crabs, clams and octopus as local delicacies. Other dishes such as Merluza a la sidra (hake in cider) combine the best that land and sea have to offer. Here, too, well-fed dairy cattle grazing in green pastures make it easy to see why Asturias has a reputation for quality milk and cheeses such as the famous Cabrales Blue and Queso Gamoneu.

Old roads provide an unhurried journey through quiet villages where vestiges of a more traditional way of life remain. Women gather-in freshly-cut hay from the fields by horse and cart, and cattle are kept alongside farmhouses. Everywhere there are onions, or washing, hanging on covered balconies attached to traditional, wooden Asturian granaries built on raised stone piles.

The Costa Verde may not have wall to wall sunshine, but it does have an un spoilt landscape, friendly people and it is not overcrowded like much of the Mediterranean coast. The weather is variable because of the Atlantic influence but it’s very mild in winter. Europeans are now discovering what Spaniards have long known, in summer the rich go south, the wise go north.