Spain Guide
Introduction to Spain
Spain is a country that fast becomes an addiction. You might intend just to come for a beach holiday, or a tour of the major cities, but before you know it, you'll be hooked by something quite different – the celebration of some local fiesta, perhaps or the amazing nightlife in Madrid, or the Moorish monuments of Andalucía. By then, of course, you'll have noticed that there is not just one Spain, but many.
The major cities are compellingly individual. Barcelona(see Catalunya), for many, has the edge, thanks largely to Gaudí's splendid modernista architecture, but Madrid, although not as pretty, claims as many devotees. Then there's Seville, home of flamenco; Valencia, the vibrant capital of the Levante; and Bilbao, with its astonishing Museo Guggenheim.
Monuments vary just as widely. Touring Castile and León, you can't avoid vast cathedrals and reconquista castles; in northerly, mountainous Asturias and the Pyrenees, tiny Romanesque churches dot the hillsides; Andalucía has the great mosques and Moorish palaces of Granada, Seville and Córdoba; Castile boasts the superb medieval capital, Toledo, and the gorgeous Renaissance city of Salamanca; and harsh Extremadura cradles ornate conquistador towns.
The landscape holds similar fascination. The evergreen estuaries of Galicia could hardly be more different from the high, arid plains of Castile, or the gulch-like deserts of Almería. Spain also boasts fine mountain ranges like the Picos de Europa and the Pyrenees, as well of course as beaches, with delightful pockets remaining even along the big tourist costas.
Spain's land area is around half a million square kilometres – about twice the size of the UK or Oregon. Of its 46 million-strong population some eighty percent declare themselves Catholic, though religious observance is patchy. Politically, democracy and the monarchy were restored in 1977, after the death of General Franco, who seized power in the Civil War of 1936–39. Spanish (Castilian) is spoken as a first language by 74 percent of the population, while 17 percent speak variants of Catalan, 7 percent Galician and 2 percent Basque. Regionalism is a major force; nationalism is pushing the most powerful of the seventeen autonomías, Catalunya and the Basque Country, towards quasi-independence.