Spain Guide
Catalunya
Although Barcelona has long been an international city, the wider area of Catalunya retains a distinct regional identity that borrows little from the rest of Spain, let alone the world at large. Out of the city – and especially in rural areas – you'll hear Catalan spoken more often and be confronted with better Catalan food. Towns and villages are surprisingly prosperous, a relic of the early industrial era, and the people are enterprising and open, celebrating festivals in almost obsessive fashion. Today, Catalunya is officially a semi-autonomous comunidad, but it can still feel like a separate country.
Catalunya is satisfying to tour, since two or three hours in any direction leads to varying landscapes of great beauty, from rocky coastlines to long, flat beaches, from the mountains to the plain and from marshlands to forest. Barcelona is linked to most main centres by excellent bus and train services. The obvious targets are the coasts north and south of the city, and the various provincial capitals (Girona, Tarragona and Lleida).
The best beach towns lie on the Costa Brava, which runs up to the French border. Large, brash resorts are tempered by isolated beaches and lower-key villages, such as Cadaqués. Just inland from the coast, little Figueres contains the Teatre-Museu Dalí, Catalunya's biggest tourist attraction. South of Barcelona, the Costa Daurada is less enticing, though it has at least one fine beach at Sitges and the attractive coastal town of Tarragona.
Even on a short trip, you can take in the medieval city of Girona. With more time, you can head for the Catalan Pyrenees, which offer magnificent hiking, and good skiing in winter. East of here is Andorra, a combination of tax-free hellhole and mountain retreat set beyond the quieter, generally neglected border towns of La Seu d'Urgell and Puigcerdà.
Highlights
1 Girona The labyrinthine "City of a thousand sieges" boasts a two-thousand-year-old history.
2 Sitges Sample the frenetic nightlife or, better still, the Carnaval, of chic Sitges.
3 Roman Tarragona Some of the most important remains of the Roman occupation.