Cantabria

The regions of Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria all enjoy a mild, wet climate, ensuring an exceptionally lush and agriculturally rich landscape. They share, too, a coast of intense beauty. Santander offers the classiest of resorts, as it has done since the late 19th century, and green hills conceal quieter beaches nearby. Beyond here is the heavily indented coast of Asturias and remote Galicia. Fiord like inlets surge deep inland between craggy heights and pine covered slopes; granite cliffs rise over broad strips of bright yellow sand, and the whole sea battered coast becomes more fragmented the farther west you go. Heavy rainfall prevents the whole region from becoming a popular tourist destination, so if you have the time to explore it and can cope with the possibility of rain, it offers some exhilarating scenery.

Lodged way up in the gentle, green Galician hills is Spain's greatest religious shrine. Santiago de Compostela has been drawing visitors to the doors of its magnificent cathedral for the best part of a thousand years. It is one of the country's historic, cultural highlights and reason enough to travel to this far northwest comer of Spain. Dusty red Romanesque churches dot the valleys on the pilgrims' route to Santiago, which runs through a rural landscape of delightful variety. Traditional, small scale farming is still a way of life in Galicia: a field of maize, a vine covered slope and a clutch of fruit trees grouped round crumbling old farm buildings form a typical scene in its sheltered, twisting valleys. Cattle draw solid wheeled carts bringing freshly cut hay from the fields, and on the edges of villages you will see borreos small stone barns that stand on stilts, keeping them free from pests and damp, usually protected by a holy cross.

The Asturias and Cantabria countryside is equally captivating: quiet vales shelter apple orchards, source of the sidra drunk throughout Asturias, and lush dairy pastures give way to the formidable Picos de Europa inland, a staggering range of snow capped peaks that afford some of the best climbing and walking to be had in Europe.