Mediterranean Idylls
BALEARIC ISLANDS
Spain
With their long, sandy strands and lush, green interiors, the Balearic Islands are the jewels of the western Mediterranean. And like so much else in this region, they were bitterly contested first by the Carthaginians and Romans, then a millennium later by the Moors and Christians. As a result, on the largest island of Mallorca (Majorca), the foundation of a grand mosque supports the lavish Gothic Catedral de Santa María de Palma. The church, in the capital city of Palma, has astounding stained-glass rose windows, modernista iron canopies designed by Antoni Gaudí (see p. 261) above the altar, and local artist Miguel Barceló’s avant-garde ceramic mural. But then Mallorca is no stranger to artists. Lyrically abstract painter and sculptor Joan Miró worked on the outskirts of Palma, where his studio and some late works are displayed in the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró.
Stay about 8 miles west of town at Hospes Maricel; high ceilings and glass walls minimize the visual divide between indoors and out. The beach is a 5-minute walk, but between the gourmet restaurant and the inviting spa, it could be hard to leave for a swim.
Don’t miss a drive clockwise around the island on the Costa Rocosa, the unspoiled coastline of craggy cliffs. Visit beautiful Valldemossa, famed for the Carthusian monastery where Frédéric Chopin and his lover, novelist George Sand, spent the personally miserable but creatively productive winter of 1838-39. You, however, can find happiness at the Valldemossa Hotel, on the same property. The poet Robert Graves found his paradise in the village of Deià. Enjoy it from the flowerfilled patio at La Residencia; then nourish your palate at the hotel’s famed El Olivo restaurant. Continue on to the wild scenery of the Peninsula de Formentor, where a rocky cape seems to strike out to sea like a serpent.
Ibiza is the Mediterranean’s party island. Much of the club scene is centered on the Porto Deportivo, in Eivissa (Ibiza City). Outside the city, Ibiza boasts some of the finest beaches and amusing remnants of the backpacking infusion of the 1960s. Sample the hippie market on Saturdays in the village of Sant Carlos, especially if you’ve chosen to stay in the farmhouse retreat of Can Curreu. Or hop a boat to tiny Formentera, where spectacular, largely undeveloped beaches are popular with nudists and divers.
WHERE: Mallorca is 345 miles/555 km southeast of Madrid. VISITOR INFO: www.illesbalears.es. FUNDACIÓ PILAR I JOAN MIRÓ: Tel 34/971-701420; miro.palmademallorca.es. HOSPES MARICEL: Tel 34/971-707744; www.hospes.com. Cost: from $260 (off-peak), from $550 (peak). VALLDEMOSSA HOTEL: Tel 34/971-612626; www.valldemossahotel.com. Cost: from $500. LA RESIDENCIA: Tel 34/971-639011; www.hotel-laresidencia.com. Cost: from $300 (off-peak), from $790 (peak). CAN CURREU: Tel 34/971-335280; www.cancurreu.com. Cost: from $325. BEST TIMES: Apr–May and Sep–Oct for hiking, walking, and cycling; Jun–Aug for beach activities.
A Masterwork of Architectural Sculpture
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO
Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain
Looking like a hybrid of giant bird, great ship, and armored dinosaur, the titanium- and stone-covered Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (a satellite of the New York-based Guggenheim Museum; see p. 843) has become this Basque port city’s signature building, transforming the once gritty shores of the Nervión River. Cross the river on a glass-floored pedestrian bridge by star architect Santiago Calatrava for the best views of the Guggenheim building, designed in 1997 by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. The flamboyant exterior forms translate inside into 18 similarly idiosyncratic galleries.
In the much vaunted “Guggenheim effect,” Gehry’s audacious masterpiece jump-started the economic and architectural revival of the city, with striking contemporary sculptures and structures by many of the world’s top talents, and a lively café scene. The riverside walking path leads to Bilbao’s Casco Viejo, or old city, where some of Spain’s finest pintxos (peent-SHOS, Basque tapas) are found in the bars under the Neoclassical arches of Plaza Nueva (also the site of a lively Sunday-morning market). The city has emerged as one of the important centers for new Basque cuisine, best enjoyed at Gure Kide, where chef Aitor Elola fuses Basque tradition, respect for ingredients, and the Spanish penchant for whimsy. Both the bistrot and the restaurant-in-residence of the Guggenheim Museum also highlight Basque cuisine. Two excellent hotels across the street from the Guggenheim echo Gehry’s design sensibility—the minimalist and more modest Hotel Miró, by Spanish fashion designer Antonio Miró, and the avant-garde-chic Silken Gran Hotel Domine, where diners on the rooftop terrace enjoy Guggenheim views.
WHERE: 249 miles/395 km north of Madrid. GUGGENHEIM: Tel 34/944-359059 (museum), 34/944-239333 (restaurant); www.guggenheim-bilbao.es. Cost: dinner at Bistrot $25; at Restaurant $90. GURE KIDE: Tel 34/944-415004. Cost: dinner $60. HOTEL MIRÓ: Tel 34/946-611880; www.mirohotelbilbao.com. Cost: from $135. SILKEN GRAN HOTEL DOMINE: Tel 34/944-253300; www.hoteles-silken.com. Cost: from $150. BEST TIME: late Aug for Semana Grande festival.
A Newly Stylish Wine Region Emerges
RIOJA
La Rioja and Basque Country, Spain
The “Guggenheim effect” that took root in Bilbao (see above) quickly spread to neighboring Rioja, Spain’s most celebrated wine country. In 2006, architect Frank Gehry redesigned the facilities of the Marqués de Riscal winery, in the tiny Basque village of Eltziego (Elciego in Spanish). Marqués de Riscal pioneered Rioja winemaking here, releasing its first vintage in 1862 and making a name for Rioja’s elegant reds when disease was ravaging the vineyards north of the region, in Bordeaux. Just as the company jump-started the wine business then, it has revolutionized Rioja wine tourism today by commissioning Gehry to integrate its 19th-century warehouses with visionary 21st-century structures known as the City of Wine. You need to reserve ahead for a tour, but casual tastings are available at the new shop. To cap the experience, spend the night at the Hotel Marqués de Riscal, Gehry’s sweeping 43-room architectural fantasy of undulating titanium that squats like a great bird on a hill above the winery. The Marqués de Riscal Gastronomic Restaurant lives up to its grand name with cutting-edge contemporary Basque cuisine and one of the finest wine cellars in Spain.
Other world-class architects have also put their stamp on La Rioja. Zaha Hadid designed a postmodern cathedral-like tasting pavilion for Bodegas López de Heredia, in Haro, whereas Santiago Calatrava created low-lying, undulating buildings for Bodegas Ysios, in Laguardia. In Logroño, the regional capital, take your pick of several casual bars or restaurants on Calle Laurel to sip and snack on tapas or to dine on lamb chops, salt cod-stuffed peppers, or potatoes in a smoky paprika sauce. The city’s starkly minimalist modern Hotel Marqués de Vallejo makes a good home when touring the region.
Gehry’s inspiration for Hotel Marqués de Riscal: the pink hue of Rioja, the gold adorning the bottles, the silver foil around the cork.
WHERE: 60 miles/97 km south of Bilbao. CITY OF WINE TOUR: Tel 34/945-180880; www.marquesderiscal.com. HOTEL MARQUÉS DE RISCAL: Tel 34/945-180880; www.luxurycollection.com. Cost: from $390; dinner $140. HOTEL MARQUÉS DE VALLEJO: Tel 34/941-248333; www.hotelmarquesdevallejo.com. Cost: from $80 (off-peak), from $150 (peak). BEST TIMES: May–Oct for nicest weather; Jun 29 for Haro’s “Wine Battle,” when participants dressed all in white squirt each other with red wine; late Aug–early Oct for harvest season.
Culinary Mecca in a Coastal Belle Époque Setting
SAN SEBASTIÁN AND BASQUE COUNTRY
Spain
Along with France’s Biarritz (see p. 100), San Sebastián is the great Belle Époque resort of the Basque coast. Crescent-shaped La Concha beach is punctuated on either end by misty mountains and lined with 19th-century resort buildings—perhaps the most beautiful urban beach in Europe. The setting lured Spanish queen-regent María Cristina to make the city the royal court’s summer home.
Today San Sebastián is less Spanish than Basque, which is most visible in the use of street signs in Euskara, the Basque language. San Sebastián goes locally by its Basque name, Donastia, and function
s as the cultural capital of the Basque coast from Bilbao to Bayonne, France. (Basque nationalists see the Spanish Basque region, the Basque-speaking parts of Spanish Navarre and La Rioja, and the three Basque provinces of France as the single nation of Euskadi.)
The Basques have political autonomy within Spain but have yet to get their own country. Nonetheless, they conquered the tables of Spain (and of some of France) in the 1980s with the explosion of nueva cocina vasca (New Basque cuisine) and have maintained their role as Spain’s great culinary mecca. The godfather of the movement is Juan Mari Arzak, who applied the light principles of French nouvelle cuisine to traditional Basque flavors and invented a new, fresh ingredient-driven approach to cooking. His Arzak restaurant, where daughter Elena shares the kitchen, attracts food lovers from around the world. Inventive New Basque cuisine is also available in the tapas bars of the newly gentrified Gros district. The legendary Bar Bergara sets out a mind-boggling spread, and the front bar at Kursaal MB lets you sample chef Martín Berasategui’s savory creations.
San Sebastián’s signature Kursaal cultural center, designed by Rafael Moneo, is home to esteemed jazz and film festivals. The aristocratic Hotel María Cristina, which sits like a queen on the west bank of the Urumea River, serves as unofficial headquarters for the annual film festival. The 1912 landmark still dazzles with its opulent lobby of ormolu, onyx columns, and Carrara marble floors. A good alternative at (but not on) La Concha beach is the gently weathered Hotel Londres y de Inglaterra, a dignified grande dame from the Belle Époque. From either hotel it’s an easy jaunt to visit the Basque fishing ports of Lekeitio, Getaria, and Ondárroa, or the artist-haunted resorts of Zumaia and Zarautz.
WHERE: San Sebastián is 57 miles/92 km east from Bilbao, 12 miles/21 km west of the French border. ARZAK: Tel 34/943-285593; www.arzak.info. Cost: prix fixe menu $72. BAR BERGARA: Tel 34/943-275026. Cost: pintxo “meal” $15. KURSAAL MB: Tel 34/943-003162. Cost: pintxo “meal” $15. HOTEL MARÍA CRISTINA: Tel 34/943-437600; www.starwoodhotels.com. Cost: from $295 (off-peak), from $500 (peak). HOTEL LONDRES Y DE INGLATERRA: Tel 34/943-440770; www.hlondres.com. Cost: from $230 (off-peak), from $350 (peak). BEST TIMES: Jan 20 for St. Sebastian’s Day; late Jul for Jazz Festival; mid-Aug for Semana Grande; mid-Sep for International Film Festival.
Fragile and Invaluable Link to the Ice Age
THE CAVES OF ALTAMIRA AND SANTILLANA DEL MAR
Cantabria, Spain
Forbidden to all but a chosen few, the Caves of Altamira (las Cuevas de Altamira) are often described as the Sistine Chapel of prehistoric art. Together with the Lascaux caves (see p. 102) in southern France, they contain the best Upper Paleolithic cave paintings in Europe. Discovered in perfect condition by a local hunter in 1879, the red-and-black bison, bulls, horses, and boars demonstrate Neolithic man’s love of beauty and astonishing artistic skill. The cave paintings range from 4 to 8 feet high and are estimated to be 14,000 to 20,000 years old. Unfortunately, a century’s worth of heat and moisture from throngs of tourists caused serious deterioration, and public admissions were suspended in 2002; but there is continual speculation that the caves may be reopened under a plan of tightly limited visitation. The adjacent Museo de Altamira re-creates the setting and paintings (including before-and-after photos that show the damage) with superb exhibits on anthropology and archaeology, but perhaps minus the goosebumps of the real thing.
The caves are 2 miles outside the small town of Santillana del Mar, a cluster of perfectly preserved mansions and palaces with a palpable medieval spirit. Jean-Paul Sartre called it “the prettiest little village in Spain.” Despite its name, the town actually lies 3 miles from the sea. Stroll through town to the 12th-century church of St. Juliana, the burial place of the 3rd-century martyred saint. (Over time, her name was corrupted and evolved into Santillana.) At the other end of the main street is the 400-year-old Convent of the Poor Clares (Convento de Regina Coeli), whose museum contains a surprisingly rich assemblage of religious paintings and statues.
If you’ve fallen under the spell of this tiny town, end your stroll at the Plaza de Ramón Pelayo, where the Parador Santillana Gil Blas occupies the 17th-century manor of local nobility. Across the small plaza, an annex built recently in the same style absorbs the guest overflow. Call ahead: A visit to Santillana is incomplete if there’s no room at this inn.
The caves were painted in the Paleolithic period.
WHERE: 21 miles/34 km west of Santander. MUSEO DE ALTAMIRA: Tel 34/942-818005; www.museodealtamira.es. PARADOR SANTILLANA GIL BLAS: Tel 34/942-028028; www.parador.es; in the U.S., Marketing Ahead, 800-223-1356; www.marketingahead.com. Cost: from $250. BEST TIME: May–Oct for pleasant weather.
Spain’s Greenest Heights
PICOS DE EUROPA
Cantabria and Asturias, Spain
An unspoiled enchantment envelops these soaring mountains that wall off the wet northern coast of Spain from the arid high plateau of Castile and León. Rising to nearly 9,000 feet, they hold a thousand secrets of earlier times. The remote forests and deep gorges of the 250-square-mile Parque Natural de Picos de Europa (Peaks of Europe) are stomping grounds of the Iberian brown bear and shaggy wild Asturcón horse. Human habitations in the limestone caves go back 140,000 years. Covadonga National Park, outside Cangas de Onís on the western edge of the Picos, is where the near-legendary Pelayo led his revolt against the advancing Moors in 722 and began the reconquest of Spain that was completed by his distant descendant, Isabel of Castile, in 1492. Don Pelayo made Cangas de Onís his first capital of Christian Spain, and the picturesque mountain village makes a good starting point for touring the historic sites (including Pelayo’s tomb, high above a waterfall in adjacent Covadonga) and for hiking, canoeing, and spelunking.
On the banks of the Sella River, the Parador de Cangas de Onís, housed in an atmospheric 12th-century monastery, provides lodging on the west end of the mountains, in the town of Villanueva. There is great middle-of-nowhere dining just outside Arriondas, where master chef Nacho Manzano has turned his farmhouse birthplace into one of northern Spain’s most exciting restaurants, Casa Marcial. On the east end of the Picos park, over the line in Cantabria, the modern mountain lodge of the Parador Fuente Dé sits at the base of a gondola—one of the longest single-span cable cars in Europe—that ferries trekkers to alpine hiking trails. Narrow river gorges make the twisting roads of the Picos one of the most exciting road trips in Spain. Stop off in the village of Las Arenas de Cabrales to buy some of the locally made Cabrales blue cheese and a loaf of bread for your road trip.
The limestone peak of Naranjo de Bulnes rises over 8,000 feet above the park.
WHERE: 45 miles/72 km east of Oviedo. PARADOR DE CANGAS DE ONÍS: Tel 34/985-849402; www.parador.es; in the U.S., Marketing Ahead, 800-223-1356; www.marketingahead.com. Cost: $210. When: closed Jan–Feb. CASA MARCIAL: Tel 34/985-840991; www.casamarcial.com. Cost: dinner $60. PARADOR FUENTE DÉ: Tel 34/942736651; www.parador.es; in the U.S., Marketing Ahead, 800-223-1356; www.marketingahead.com. Cost: $150 (off-peak), from $190 (peak). When: closed Jan–Feb. HOW: U.S.-based Mountain Travel Sobek offers 8-day hikes through the Picos. Tel 888-831-7526 or 510-594-6000; www.mtsobek.com. Cost: $3,395, inclusive. Originate in Oviedo. When: Jul, Sep. BEST TIME: May–Oct for snow-free hiking, wildflower blooms, and least rain.
A Gravity-Defying Aerie That Is Home to Abstract Art
CUENCA
Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Of Spain’s many hilltop cities, none seems quite as vertical or gravity-defying as Cuenca, perched high above the gorges and confluence of the Júcar and Huécar rivers. The Castilians wrenched the city from the Moors in 1177, and within a century they ran out of space and began to cantilever their casas colgadas, or hanging houses, over the gorges. So steep is the hill that the back doors of some buildings fronting the main street of Calle Alfonso VIII are three stories below, making the city feel like a three-dimensional puzzle.
No wonder the abstract artists known as El Grupo Paso fell in love with Cu
enca in the 1950s and made it the epicenter of a new artistic movement. Their legacy is three fine museums, one of which, the small but wonderful Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, occupies one of the city’s most famous casas colgadas. The handful of remaining hanging houses are also still very much part of the local scene. The town’s most prestigious address is the Parador de Cuenca, located in a 16th-century monastery on a nearby crag. It stands across a vertigo-inducing footbridge from the hanging houses in the town’s center, while the town’s best eatery (and a great spot to linger with a drink) is the Mesón Casas Colgadas, oft photographed for its precarious perch and located next to the museum. The town specialty, zarajos, roasted lamb intestines, is usually on the menu.
In the Old Town, check into the atmospheric Posada de San José, just around the corner from the Anglo-Norman cathedral. It is said that the painter Diego Velázquez frequently stayed here and may have used local inspiration while painting Las Meninas, one of the Prado’s most famous artworks (see p. 267).
To reach the famed hanging houses, visitors must navigate the town’s steep and narrow cobbled streets.
WHERE: 105 miles/169 km east of Madrid. MUSEO DE ARTE ABSTRACTO ESPAÑOL: Tel 34/969-212983; www.march.es/cuenca. PARADOR DE CUENCA: Tel 34/969-232320; www.parador.es; in the U.S., Marketing Ahead, 800-223-1356; www.marketingahead.com. Cost: from $225. MESÓN CASAS COLGADAS: Tel 34/969-223509; www.mesoncolgadas.com. Cost: dinner $55. POSADA DE SAN JOSÉ: Tel 34/969-211300; www.posadasanjose.com. Cost: from $115. BEST TIME: Apr–Oct for nicest weather. Nights are cool in Cuenca, even in Aug.
1,000 Places to See Before You Die Page 42