Fodor's Exploring Spain, 5th Edition (Exploring Guides)

Book by Fodors

Spain Is ...A Land of Many Selves
The land beyond the Pyrenees, exotic, strange, romantic: keen member of NATO and the European Union; land of the guitar and the carnation, passionate about soccer and long-distance bicycle racing; land of extravagant Easter processions, where hooded penitents go barefoot and beat their backs with chains; land of ancient cities and modern artists, belonging half to the Atlantic, half to the Mediterranean. All these images and many others have more than a grain of truth in them.
From the visitors point of view, the first attraction may well be the climate and the sea, in which case Spain's Mediterranean coast will be the target. This is where the postwar package-tour boom began in the late 1950s and 1960s, with heavy overbuilding and a start to the Concrete Costas, so much discussed and criticized — and yes, they are horrible in many places. But now, after a scare at the prospect of losing visitors, the Costas have tidied themselves up considerably, with better facilities, clean beaches, and safe drinking water. Visiting them can be a crowded, cheerful kind of experience, not by any means "real Spain," but something, nevertheless, that many still find unbeatable for a vacation. There are some places on the Costas, as visitors and readers of this book will soon discover, which do remain remarkably attractive.

Spain Is ...People and Institutions
What is it about the Spanish that makes them different? Democracy and E.U. membership mean that Spain has entered the European mainstream, yet somehow it still feels like a place apart. If the people of Spain share certain characteristics, they are an ability to enjoy life to the full, and a sense of style best embodied in the early-evening paseo, when the city streets fill with people dressed in their smartest casuals as they engage in the age-old pastimes of strolling, flirting, and people watching.
The young assert themselves through informality, picking up Europe's latest fashions and, in the big cities, even anticipating them. Spain may seem to be characterized by a young woman in jeans strolling arm-in-arm down a village street with her black-clad grandmother.
Vigor of speech and gesture is an abiding characteristic of the Spaniards. In Aragón and Navarra people speak so forcefully that they may sound quite angry during an exchange of pleasantries. The traditional notion that Spain is the slothful country of mañana or "tomorrow" may be true enough of the bureaucracy, but most Spaniards work hard and often quickly.

Spain Is ...Pleasures and Diversions
In Spain as elsewhere, television watching is the great pastime, with blaring T.V. sets a fixture in cheap restaurants, and game shows plentiful. Television also shows a lot of soccer, and it is this, these days, that is probably the number one public passion. Real Madrid and Barça (Barcelona) dominate a league whose smallest quivers send shock waves through the nation. Sports papers are eagerly read; players live in a cauldron of emotion, and supporters work themselves into a frenzy of enthusiasm.
Bicycling is another major Spanish sport, and even in the hottest weather motorists may encounter posses of brightly and tightly clad persons, heads bent down over handlebars, whizzing through remote and hostile territory.

Mountaineering and mountain walking are also popular, especially in the north, and most of all in the Basque country. Foreigners are the main walkers in southern sierras, mainly in the Alpujarras south of Granada and the lovely, if steep, countryside around the White Towns in the provinces of Málaga and Cádiz. Horseback riding and the management of horses is another Spanish passion, particularly in Andalucía, and visitors tap into this as well, with increasing numbers of trekking holidays now on offer, often amidst wild scenery.
Though assaulted from abroad on grounds of cruelty, bullfighting remains almost as important as soccer, with indications that young people are attending in greater numbers. Spaniards will tell you that it is not a sport, but an ancient ritual, with a strong aesthetic content, and that it raises issues of life and death for man as well as bull. Either way, like it or loathe it, it is there in Spanish society — not reported on newspaper sports pages but reviewed on the arts pages along with literature and music.

Spain Is ...Food and Drink
Each region of Spain makes its own dishes, based on the best locally available ingredients and served with regional wines or other distinctive drinks. The sum of them all is an extraordinarily varied national cuisine. Hotels catering for foreign tourists, however, are more likely to serve international food. For a quick bite, Spanish fast food restaurants are springing up in competition with the familiar American chains along the coasts and in the cities.
Essentially, the country has four broad culinary divisions. There is a band along the northern coast where seafood and bean dishes dominate; Catalonia has rich and subtle mixtures such as meat cooked in a fruit sauce; the interior (mainly "Old Castile" north of Madrid and "New Castile" to the south) goes in for meat, part grilled, part roasted in wood-fire ovens; Andalucía is the place for salad, fish, and fruit. There are local drinks like sherry in the south or cider in the north. Many areas produce good cheese, once again highly distinctive in character. Excellent mineral waters abound, from Vichy Catalan in the Costa Brava to Lanjarón from the springs of the Alpujarra mountains south of Granada. Madrid has a great range of regional and foreign restaurants — and some very good dishes of its own.