Rough Guides - The Rough Guide to Spain (Travel Guide eBook)

First-time visitors be warned: Spain is addictive. You might book a city break, villa holiday or hiking trip, but soon youll find yourself distracted by something quite different swept up in the excitement of a fiesta, hooked on the local cuisine, or stunned by Barcelonas otherworldly architecture. Even in the best-known destinations from Madrid to the costas , from the high Pyrenees to the Moorish cities of the south there are genuinely surprising attractions at every turn, whether that be cool restaurants in the Basque country, the wild landscapes of the central plains, or cutting-edge galleries in the industrial north. Soon, youll notice that there is not just one Spain but many and indeed, Spaniards themselves often speak of Las Espaas (the Spains).

This diversity is partly down to an almost obsessive regionalism, stemming from the creation in the late 1970s of seventeen comunidades autonomas (autonomous regions) with their own governments, budgets and cultural ministries, and even police forces. You might think you are on holiday in Spain but your hosts are more likely to be adamant that youre 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. Indeed, 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 for visitors? As a rule not really, since few tourists have the time or inclination to immerse themselves in contemporary Spanish political discourse. Far more important is to look beyond the clichs of paella, matadors, sangra and siesta if youre to get the best out of a visit to this amazingly diverse country.

Even in the most over-touristed resorts of the Costa del Sol, youll be able to 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 dont all close down for hours for a kip every afternoon). And now that the world looks to Spain for culinary inspiration the country has some of the most acclaimed chefs and innovative restaurants in the world its clear that things have changed. Spain, despite some lingering economic uncertainty, sees itself very differently from a generation ago. So should you prepare to be surprised.

Fact file

• Spains land area is around half a million square kilometres about twice the size of the UK or Oregon. The population is almost 47.5 million some eighty percent of whom declare themselves nominally Catholic, though religious observance is patchy.
• Politically, Spain is a parliamentary monarchy ; democracy was restored in 1977, after the death of General Franco, the dictator who seized power in the Civil War of 193639.
• Spaniards read fewer newspapers than almost any other Europeans tellingly, the best-selling daily is Marca , devoted purely to football.
• Spanish (Castilian) is the main official language, but sizeable numbers of Spaniards also speak variants of Catalan (in Catalunya, parts of Valencia and Alicante provinces, and on the Balearic Islands), Galician and Basque , all of which are also officially recognized languages.
• A minority of Spaniards attend bullfights ; it doesnt rain much on the plains ; and they only dance flamenco in the southern region of Andaluca.
• The highest mountain on the Spanish peninsula is Mulhacn (3483m), and the longest river is the Rio Tajo (716km).
• Spain has 48 sites on UNESCOs World Heritage list more than twice as many as the US.
• Between them, Real Madrid and Barcelona have won the Spanish league title sixty times and the European Cup (Champions League) eighteen times and counting.