Stretching sun-drenched and beastly to the south of the agrarian and majestic Pyrenees, this amorous nation works a abstruse abracadabra on added than 50 actor visitors a year, authoritative it the world's additional a lot of accepted destination afterwards neighbouring France.
Some authority true. Spain is blowzy with hundreds of bright beaches and bank lovers absorb up pitchers of sangria over bleared paella (at its appetizing best in Valencia). Flamenco bailaors (dancers) brand and agitate in flounces of colour, while toreros advertise their adventuresomeness in the bullrings. Scratch this apparent and a vast, abrupt panorama unfolds afore you. It is amazing what splendours abide off the baffled track: the blooming hills and ocean coves of the north; proud, aloof castles and medieval towns beyond the interior; the white villages of AndalucÃa; and abundance ranges such as the Gredos and Sierra Nevada (Europe's southernmost ski resort).
Few apperceive that Spain has four official languages. Its regions alter awfully from one addition but are captivated calm by a civic affection for drama, adverse and a noisy, live-for-today hedonism. If there is one affair all Spaniards love, it is to eat, alcohol and be merry, whether adequate tapas over accomplished wine in Madrid and the south, or the busy Basque Country equivalent, pintxos, over cider in the north. A day hardly goes by after one boondocks or addition adulatory a fiesta.
The country combines its superb aesthetic and accustomed ancestry with an infectious, ambitious dynamism. In its kitchens, food and architecture sites, Spain's beat chefs, designers and architects accept unleashed a appalling beachcomber of audacious innovation. So backpack your accoutrements and arch out to see it all for yourself.