Cities in Spain — 3-Day Travel Guides

Barcelona

Barcelona (Catalunya's capital, not Spain's — a distinction the 1.6 million Barcelonans and 7 million Catalans take seriously) is the most architecturally extraordinary city in Europe: Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família (under construction since 1882, expected completion 2026 to mark the centenary of Gaudí's death), Casa Batlló and Casa Milà (La Pedrera) make Barcelona the only city where a single architect's vision defines the urban landscape, placing his unfinished cathedral in competition with Notre-Dame, the Duomo and St Peter's as the most ambitious sacred building ever attempted. Beyond Gaudí: the Gothic Quarter (Barri Gòtic — the medieval core with Roman walls still standing from the 1st century BC, the cathedral, and the narrow lanes where Picasso spent his formative years), the Rambla (the most famous pedestrian boulevard in the Mediterranean), Barceloneta beach (one of the finest urban beaches in Europe) and one of the deepest tapas cultures in Catalonia. Barcelona is also the world capital of Modernisme (the Catalan Art Nouveau movement) — in one city you can see more Modernista buildings than in any other place on earth.

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Bilbao

Bilbao (Bilbo in Basque — population 350,000 in the city, 1 million in the Greater Bilbao metro) is the capital of the province of Bizkaia and the largest city in the Basque Country of northern Spain, and it is the most celebrated example of urban regeneration in the late 20th century: the "Bilbao Effect" (also called the "Guggenheim Effect") is the term used in urban planning for the transformation of a declining post-industrial city through a single iconic piece of architecture. In 1983, Bilbao was flooded by the worst floods in its history (the Gran Inundación de 1983: the Nervión River overflowed catastrophically, killing 34 people and causing €4 billion of damage): the city was a declining steel and shipbuilding center facing mass unemployment (unemployment reached 25% in the 1980s) with a polluted river running through a rusted industrial waterfront. By 1997, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao had opened (Frank Gehry, 1997 — the titanium-clad building on the banks of the Nervión that is the most critically celebrated piece of architecture of the late 20th century), and the "Bilbao Effect" had begun: the museum attracted 1.4 million visitors in its first year (4× the projected numbers), catalyzing a €4 billion investment in the city's infrastructure (the Foster + Partners Metro (1995), the Calatrava Airport terminal (2000), the Zaha Hadid Azkuna Zentroa cultural center (2010 renovation)), and transforming a rusting industrial city into one of the most visited destinations in Spain within 20 years. Bilbao is also the center of the Basque gastronomic culture — the pintxos (the Basque tapas, served on bread with a toothpick: the pintxo bar culture of Bilbao's Casco Viejo (the old town) is the most intense and rewarding food culture in Spain).

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Cordoba

Córdoba (population 325,000) is the most historically layered city in Spain and the most important archaeological and architectural treasure of Al-Andalus (the Muslim Iberian civilization that was the most intellectually advanced civilization in Western Europe from the 8th to the 11th century). The Mezquita-Catedral (the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba — UNESCO World Heritage: the most extraordinary single building in Spain, built in layers from 784 to 1523 CE and synthesizing the most important Islamic and Christian architectural traditions in a single structure), the best-preserved Moorish palace-city in the world (the Medina Azahara — UNESCO 2018: the 10th-century palace complex of the Caliph Abd al-Rahman III — the most powerful ruler in the history of Islamic Spain), and the most perfectly preserved medieval Jewish quarter in Spain (the Judería of Córdoba — the most important surviving medieval Jewish urban fabric in Iberia) make Córdoba the most important heritage city in all of Spain. In the 10th century, Córdoba was the most populous city in the world with approximately 500,000 inhabitants (the most important medieval megacity in Western Europe), the most important centre of learning in Europe (with the most important library system outside Baghdad) and the most significant cultural melting pot in the history of the Western world.

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Granada

Granada is one of the most extraordinary cities in Europe — the final Muslim kingdom of Al-Andalus (the Nasrid dynasty ruled until 1492), home of the Alhambra (the most visited building in Spain and one of the greatest examples of medieval Islamic architecture in the world), and a city where the legacy of Moorish, Jewish and Christian civilizations overlaps in every neighborhood. The tapas culture here is unique: in Granada, every drink comes with a free tapa, making it one of the best-value food cities in Spain. The snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains above, the Albaicín (Moorish quarter), and the Sacromonte (flamenco caves) make Granada unforgettable.

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Madrid

Madrid (Spain's capital since 1561, when Philip II moved the court from Toledo to the geographic center of the Iberian Peninsula) is the highest capital city in the European Union (667 meters above sea level — the thin air contributing to the city's extraordinary clarity of light) and the cultural capital of the Spanish-speaking world: the Prado (one of the three great art museums of the world alongside the Louvre and the Uffizi, with the finest collection of Spanish, Flemish and Venetian painting ever assembled), the Reina Sofía (Picasso's Guernica, Dalí, Miró), and the Thyssen-Bornemisza (the most encyclopedic private art collection in the world, gifted to Spain) are within a 15-minute walk of each other — the "Golden Triangle of Art." Madrid's social life is the most distinctive of any European capital: madrileños eat dinner at 10pm and go to bed at 4am; the tapas bars of La Latina (the oldest neighbourhood) serve free tapas with every drink until midnight; the Sunday Rastro flea market has been operating since the 15th century; and the city's cafés (the Café Gijón, the Café Comercial) are the oldest surviving literary cafés in Europe, unchanged since the 19th century.

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Malaga

Málaga (population 580,000 in the city; 1.7 million in the metropolitan area) is the sixth-largest city in Spain and the capital of the Costa del Sol — a Mediterranean port city founded by the Phoenicians as Malaka in the 8th century BCE, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe (2,800+ years of continuous settlement). Málaga was under Moorish rule from 711 to 1487 CE (the Arab rulers built the Alcazaba — the finest Moorish fortress in mainland Spain after the Alhambra — and the Gibralfaro Castle above it); the Christian Reconquista recaptured Málaga for the Crown of Castile on August 18, 1487. Málaga is most famous internationally as the birthplace of Pablo Picasso (born October 25, 1881, at Plaza de la Merced 15 — the most visited address in Málaga; the Museo Picasso Málaga has the largest single collection of Picasso's work in Spain). In the 21st century, Málaga has transformed from a beach resort gateway into one of the most vibrant cultural cities in Spain: the Soho district (the 'art district' south of the Centro Histórico — street murals, contemporary galleries, and the Teatro del Soho); the CAC Málaga (the Centre of Contemporary Art); the Pompidou Centre Málaga (the first permanent Pompidou extension outside France, opened 2015); and the Museum of Russian Art (the only permanent Russian fine art collection in Spain). The food scene: the espeto de sardinas (whole sardines grilled on cane poles over beach fires — the most emblematic food of Málaga), the boquerones (fried fresh anchovies), and the málaga wine (the sweet wine produced from the Pedro Ximénez and Muscat of Alexandria grapes in the Montes de Málaga). Best months: April–June, September–October.

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Palma de Mallorca

Palma de Mallorca is the capital of the Balearic Islands and one of the great Mediterranean cities — a place that combines the Gothic grandeur of one of the largest cathedrals in Europe (La Seu, begun 1229), the narrow lanes of the Jewish quarter (Call), the 13th-century Arab baths, the Moorish Almudaina Palace and the extraordinary collection of contemporary art (the Fundació Miró, designed by Rafael Moneo, holding 5,000 works Joan Miró bequeathed to his native island) in a compact, walkable old city of 400,000 people. Mallorca (the Balearic Islands) has a complex history: it was part of the Islamic al-Andalus (902–1229), then conquered by the Aragonese James I and settled with mainland Spanish colonists, then absorbed by the Spanish Crown; the language is Catalan (specifically Mallorquín, a Catalan variant), the cuisine is distinct from mainland Spain (ensaimada pastry, sobrassada sausage, tumbet vegetable casserole, pa amb oli bread with oil and tomato) and the island identity asserts itself through culture, language and a tourist industry that is simultaneously the island's economic engine and its greatest environmental challenge. Palma itself is regularly rated one of the world's best cities to live in — the Passeig des Born (the city's promenade), the marina with its megayachts and traditional llaut fishing boats, the terracotta-roofed old city behind the Cathedral and the 12 km of city beach at Playa de Palma make the quality-of-life argument self-evident. The Cathedral La Seu — illuminated by Antoni Gaudí's rose window above the Portal del Mirador — is visible from far out to sea and from every beach as the defining silhouette of Palma.

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Salamanca

Salamanca is a university city in the Castile and León region of western Spain, 200 km west of Madrid, with a population of 145,000 — one of the finest examples of Spanish Renaissance and Baroque urban architecture in the world, with the oldest and most prestigious university in the Iberian Peninsula (founded 1218 by King Alfonso IX of León, older than all universities in England except Oxford and Cambridge). The city's extraordinary Plaza Mayor (1729-1756, designed by architect Alberto de Churriguera — the finest Baroque civic square in Spain and one of the most beautiful in Europe, with 88 arches and 246 medallion portraits of Spanish monarchs, conquistadors and intellectuals) anchors a UNESCO World Heritage city centre (designated 1988) of golden sandstone buildings — the Cathedrals (the Old Cathedral, 12th century Romanesque, and the New Cathedral, 15th-18th century late Gothic and Plateresque, sharing a wall), the Casa de las Conchas (1517, the famous building with 300 stone scallop shells embedded in its facade — scallop = pilgrim's badge on the Camino de Santiago), the Pontifical University, and the famous Frog of Salamanca (a stone frog carved somewhere in the facade of the Old School of Medicine — finding it without help is considered a good luck charm for student exam success). Salamanca has the largest university student population as a percentage of total residents of any Spanish city — the student presence gives the city the most vibrant café, bar and nightlife culture in Castile.

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Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is the capital of Tenerife — the largest of the Canary Islands (2,034 km², 917,000 inhabitants), an autonomous community of Spain in the Atlantic Ocean 300 km west of the African coast and 1,800 km southwest of mainland Spain. Santa Cruz (population 210,000) is the administrative capital of both Tenerife and the Canary Islands autonomous region (jointly with Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the peculiar co-capital arrangement of the Canaries) — a lively Spanish port city on the northeast coast of Tenerife whose primary claim to fame is the Tenerife Carnival (the second-largest Carnival in the world after Rio de Janeiro, held in February-March, drawing 250,000 participants at peak nights; the Santa Cruz Carnival has the longest continuous tradition of any Spanish Carnival, originating in the 17th century, and was banned by Franco and survived underground). The island of Tenerife itself is dominated by Mount Teide (El Teide, 3,715 m — the highest mountain in Spain, the highest point in the Atlantic Ocean, the third-largest volcano in the world measured from its ocean base at approximately 7,000 m; UNESCO World Heritage Site; visible from Las Palmas 180 km away on a clear day; the lunar-like volcanic landscape of the Teide National Park surrounds the cone), and has the finest range of climates of any European-territory island — the northeast has lush laurel cloud forest (the Anaga Rural Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with the largest surviving fragment of the ancient Macaronesian laurisilva forest that covered all of southern Europe in the Miocene period), while the south coast bakes in guaranteed sunshine at 25°C year-round. The Tenerife cuisine features the most distinctive food culture of the Canary Islands: papas arrugadas (small salted potatoes boiled in extremely salty water until the skin wrinkles and the salt crystallises on the surface, served with mojo rojo — red pepper and cumin sauce — and mojo verde — green coriander sauce — the definitive Canarian food), gofio (toasted grain flour — wheat, barley or corn — mixed with water, milk or wine into a dough or porridge that has been the staple food of the Guanche indigenous people and their successors for 1,000 years), fresh tuna from the local waters, and the Tacoronte-Acentejo DO wines (the volcanic soil Listán Negro reds of the northeast slope).

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Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia in northwestern Spain — a city of 97,000 that is simultaneously one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Christendom (with Jerusalem and Rome, the three great pilgrimages of medieval Christianity — pilgrims have walked to Santiago for 1,200 years to visit the relics of Saint James the Apostle, and continue to arrive today at a rate of 450,000 per year, walking the Camino de Santiago from destinations across Europe and the world), and one of the most perfectly preserved Romanesque and Baroque urban ensembles in Europe. The Praza do Obradoiro (the great square in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela) is framed by four of the most important buildings in Spanish architecture: the Cathedral itself (begun 1075, consecrated 1211, with the extraordinary Baroque twin-tower facade added 1738-1750 by architect Domingo de Andrade and Fernando de Casas Novoa — the Churrigueresque Baroque towers are the most photographed church facade in Spain and the most recognisable religious image in Galicia); the Hostal dos Reis Católicos (the Royal Hospital, 1501, built by Ferdinand and Isabella to house pilgrims who arrived ill — now a 5-star parador hotel, the oldest hotel in the world in continuous operation); the Pazo de Raxoi (the Archbishop's Palace, 1766); and the Colegio de San Jerónimo (15th century). Santiago is UNESCO World Heritage since 1985, with the entire historic centre and the multiple Camino routes themselves (the Camino Francés is UNESCO World Heritage, as is the Camino del Norte). The Galician culture (the language — Galician/Galego, a Romance language closely related to Portuguese; the bagpipe tradition — the gaita galega is the living bagpipe tradition of northwestern Iberia; the octopus — pulpo á feira, the boiled octopus on a wooden board with paprika, olive oil and sea salt, the most famous dish of Galicia) gives the city a Celtic-Atlantic character entirely distinct from Castilian or Mediterranean Spain.

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Seville

Seville (Sevilla — the capital of Andalusia and the fourth largest city in Spain, population 700,000 in the city, 1.5 million in the metropolitan area) is arguably the most beautiful city in Spain and one of the most visually arresting in all of Europe: the Barrio de Santa Cruz (the medieval Jewish quarter, a labyrinth of white-washed alleys with flower-draped iron grilles and the smell of orange blossom), the Alcázar (the royal palace that began as a Moorish fort in 913 AD and was continuously expanded through Moorish, Mudejar, Gothic and Renaissance styles over 1,000 years — the oldest royal palace still in use in Europe), the Catedral de Sevilla (the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and the third largest church of any kind after St Peter's and St Paul's — containing the tomb of Christopher Columbus, whose remains rest in the four-figure bronze coffin carried by the kings of Castile, León, Aragon and Navarre). Seville is the birthplace of flamenco (the most expressive and technically demanding of all European music and dance traditions, born from the fusion of Moorish, Jewish and Romani cultures in 15th-century Andalusia), the setting of more operas than any other city in the world (Carmen, The Barber of Seville, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Fidelio are all set in Seville), and the city where Ferdinand and Isabella sent Christopher Columbus on his first voyage in 1492.

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Tarragona

Tarragona (Tarraco in Latin) is the capital of the Camp de Tarragona region and the most significant Roman city in the Iberian Peninsula — the first Roman city in Spain, founded as Tarraco in 218 BCE when the Roman generals Gnaeus and Publius Scipio landed here during the Second Punic War (the war against Hannibal Barca) and established the first permanent Roman military camp in Iberia. Tarraco grew to become the capital of the largest Roman province in Spain (Hispania Citerior, later Hispania Tarraconensis — covering the entire northern, eastern and central portions of the peninsula), the winter residence of emperors (Augustus wintered here 26-24 BCE during the Cantabrian Wars; Hadrian was here in 122-123 CE), and one of the most important cities of the Western Roman Empire, with a population of approximately 30,000 in the 1st-2nd centuries CE. The Tarraco Archaeological Ensemble was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000 for the exceptional preservation and variety of its Roman monuments: the Roman Amphitheatre (the most spectacularly sited Roman entertainment structure in the world, built directly on the cliff above the Mediterranean; the view from the top tier of the amphitheatre seats looking out to sea is the finest view of any Roman ruin in the world), the Roman Circus (the 285-metre circus for chariot racing, the best-preserved Roman circus in the Western Mediterranean), the Roman Forum (the provincial forum of the administrative capital of Hispania), the Roman Walls (the 3rd-century BCE walls — the oldest Roman walls outside Italy), and the "Devil's Bridge" (the Les Ferreres Aqueduct, 249 m long, 27 m high, 2 km north of the city). The Tarragona Cathedral (built 1171-1331 on the site of the Roman temple of Augustus and later the Great Mosque of Tarragona, reflecting 600 years of Visigoth and Moorish occupation between the Roman and medieval Christian periods) is the finest hybrid Romanesque-Gothic building in Catalonia.

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Toledo

Toledo (Toletum in Roman, Tulaytulah in Arabic — the imperial capital of Visigothic Spain (6th-7th century CE) and the de facto capital of Castile until 1561 when Philip II moved the court to Madrid; UNESCO World Heritage City 1986; population 85,000; on a granite promontory 70 m above the Tagus River gorge, 70 km south of Madrid) is the most historically layered city in Spain and the finest example of the medieval "City of Three Cultures" (the coexistence — however imperfect and ultimately terminated by the 1492 Edict of Granada and the subsequent Inquisition — of Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities in the same urban space for approximately 500 years (711-1492)). The Toledo Cathedral (the Catedral Primada de Toledo — "the Primate Cathedral", the seat of the Archbishop of Toledo who is the head of the Spanish Catholic Church and the highest-ranking prelate in Spain; built 1226-1493 in the French Gothic style (the construction was begun by Ferdinand III of Castile and completed under the Catholic Monarchs); the largest Gothic cathedral in Spain and one of the finest in the world: the 13 doors, the 72 columns, the Transparente altar (the 18th-century Baroque masterpiece by Narciso Tomé — the carved alabaster altarpiece with the skylight cut through the ceiling above it (the "transparente" — transparent — effect: the natural light illuminates the Baroque sculpture from above, creating the most theatrical lighting effect in Spanish religious architecture)). El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos — the Cretan-born painter who settled in Toledo in 1577 and remained until his death in 1614; the finest collection of El Greco's work is in Toledo: the "View and Map of Toledo" (the earliest known European cityscape, c.1610-1614), the "El Espolio" (Christ Stripped of His Garments) in the Sacristía of the Cathedral, and the masterpiece "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz" (1586-1588) in the Church of Santo Tomé). The Toledo sword-making tradition (the acero toledano — Toledo steel — the Damascene steel tradition that produced the finest swords and blades in medieval Europe; the Toledo workshop tradition of inlaying gold and silver wire into the steel blade (the damasquinado technique) continues today).

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Valencia

Valencia (population 800,000 city, 1.8 million metropolitan area; Spain's third-largest city; the capital of the Valencian Community on the Mediterranean coast of eastern Spain) is one of the most culturally distinctive cities in Spain — a city with its own language (Valencian — a variety of Catalan, spoken by approximately 50% of Valencia's population), its own legendary dish (paella valenciana — the original paella from the rice paddies of the Albufera lagoon south of Valencia: the dish consists of rice, rabbit, chicken, ferradura (flat green beans), garrofó (large white lima beans), tomato, paprika and saffron; the Valencian insistence that the authentic paella contains NO seafood is a matter of regional pride so fierce that the Valencian regional government issued an official paella recipe in 2016 to establish the 10 canonical ingredients), its own spectacular annual festival (Las Fallas — the week-long March festival (March 1-19, climaxing on the 19th — the Nit del Foc (Night of Fire)) in which hundreds of enormous satirical sculptures (fallas) made of papier-mâché, wood and polystyrene are erected throughout the city and then ceremonially burned in a single night of spectacular pyrotechnics; UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage 2016), and the most spectacular architectural complex built in Spain in the 21st century (the City of Arts and Sciences — Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias — by Santiago Calatrava: the 2-km-long complex along the former Turia riverbed including the Palau de les Arts opera house, the Oceanogràfic aquarium (the largest in Europe), the Hemisféric IMAX cinema and the Umbracle landscaped garden). The Turia Garden (Jardí del Túria — the 9-km-long linear park created in the dry bed of the Turia River (diverted after the catastrophic 1957 flood) running through the centre of Valencia from the Calatrava complex to the old city) is the greatest urban park created in Spain in the 20th century. The Silk Exchange (Lonja de la Seda — UNESCO World Heritage 1996; built 1482-1548 in the Valencian Gothic style; the most perfectly preserved Gothic commercial exchange building in Europe) documents Valencia's role as the wealthiest city in 15th-century Spain.

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Zaragoza

Zaragoza (Saragossa; population 682,000; the capital of the Autonomous Community of Aragon; on the Ebro River in the centre of the Ebro Valley (the "Zaragoza depression" — the most arid zone of the Iberian Peninsula, with an average annual rainfall of 310 mm, lower than many African cities north of the Sahara), 325 km northeast of Madrid and 295 km southwest of Barcelona) is one of the most historically layered cities in Spain: the Roman colony of Caesaraugusta (founded 14 BCE by Emperor Augustus — the name is a contraction of "Caesar Augusta": the city was founded as a Roman colonia on the Ebro River to settle the veterans of the Cantabrian Wars (the last major Roman military campaign in the Iberian Peninsula, 29-19 BCE, in which Augustus personally commanded the final subjugation of the Cantabrian and Asturian peoples of the Atlantic coast of Spain): the Roman forum of Caesaraugusta was one of the largest Roman forums in Hispania (the recent excavations beneath the modern city centre (the "Ruta de Caesaraugusta" — the four Roman museums of Zaragoza) have revealed the most complete picture of a Roman provincial city in Spain); a major Moorish city (Saraqusta — the Arabic name for Zaragoza (from the Roman Caesaraugusta): the Taifa Kingdom of Zaragoza (the Taifa of Saraqusta — the independent Muslim principality (1018-1110) that was one of the most culturally sophisticated courts of 11th century Europe: the Aljafería Palace (the 11th century Taifa palace — the most important Islamic palace in Spain outside the Alhambra and the Medina Azahara)); and the capital of the medieval Crown of Aragon (after the Reconquista of 1118, when the Aragonese king Alfonso I ("el Batallador" — "the Battler") took Zaragoza from the Muslim Almoravid governors — the Reconquista of Zaragoza was the most significant Christian military victory in the Iberian Peninsula in the 12th century: the Crown of Aragon (the union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona (1137-1479) that became the most powerful Mediterranean commercial empire of the 13th-15th centuries, at its peak controlling Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, Greece, the Duchy of Athens and the Duchy of Neopatria) was governed from Zaragoza as the royal capital). The city is dominated by the Basílica del Pilar (the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar — the most important Marian shrine in Spain and one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the world (approximately 8 million pilgrims and visitors per year): the basilica over the site where, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to the Apostle James the Greater (Santiago) in 40 CE and asked him to build a church in her honour — the first Marian apparition in Christian history, making the Pilar the most theologically significant Marian shrine in Christendom).

Spain

Cities in Spain (15)

Barcelona

Bilbao

Cordoba

Granada

Madrid

Malaga

Palma de Mallorca

Salamanca

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Santiago de Compostela

Seville

Tarragona

Toledo

Valencia

Zaragoza