- I want a beach vacation
- I want a vibrant nightlife
- I want to go trekking in the mountains
- For the Sierra Nevada and Alpujarras mountains: Granada
- For the Basque mountains: San Sebastian and Bilbao
- For the Cantabrian mountains (Cordillera Cant�brica): Leon, Santander, Oviedo, Bilbao
- For the Picos de Europa: Oviedo
- For the Montseny mountains and Montserrat: Barcelona
- I want to visit 'Green Spain'
- Major cities: A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela, Oviedo
- I want a skiing vacation
- Skiing in the Pyrenees
- Skiing in the Sierra Nevada, Granada
- Skiing near Madrid
- Skiing in Teruel, Southern Aragon
- Skiing in Teruel, Southern Aragon
- Skiing in North-West Spain
- Skiing in La Rioja, North-East Spain
- I want to do the 'traditional' Spain of bullfighting and flamenco
- I want a vacation focussed on art and architecture
- For visual art:
- The the Reina Sofia, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Prado museums of Madrid
- The Guggenheim in Bilbao
- The Picasso museum in Barcelona.
- The Dali museum in Figueres, near Girona, Catalonia.
- For architecture:
- the Moorish architecture of Granada, Seville and Zaragoza.
- the Cathedrals of Salamanca, Leon, Granada, Seville, Cadiz.
- the lunacy of Gaudi in Barcelona.
- I want to center my vacation on Spain's culinary delights
- For the best free tapas: Granada
- For authentic paella where it was invented: Valencia
- For the best seafood: A Coruña
- For cochinillo asado (roast suckling pig): Segovia
The Costa del Sol (in the south), Costa Blanca (east) and Costa Brava (north-east) are the most popular beach destinations. The nearest cities to these destinations are:
Alternatively, you could head for Benidorm, the mother of all tourist resorts!
Big cities are your best bet, particularly student cities. Check out these cities for the best in Spanish nightlife:
Spain is one of the most mountainous countries in Europe, so finding mountains is rarely a problem. There are many more mountain ranges than these, but these are some of the nicest and some of the most accessible:
'Green Spain' is the name given to the regions of Galicia and Asturias, because they're very, very green! There is far more to this region than the big cities, but they're pretty essential as bases from which to explore.
Yes, you can go skiing in Spain. Read more:
The traditional image of Spain, that of castanets and matadors, is only really accurate in Andalusia (particularly Seville), though there are echoes of it in Madrid and Barcelona too.
Spain is a great country to visit if art and architecture are your interests.
Many of Spain's best dishes can be sampled all over the country, but these are the most obvious ones:
