Spain

For the wine lovers, visit the Rioja region in northern Spain, with the Cantabrian Mountains forming a wonderful backdrop.  Visit the vineyards in the Ebro Valley near Haro, and if you’re lucky (!) get involved in the very messy Batalla de Vino (literally wine battle), part of the summer wine festival.  Or why not venture south to Jerez de La Frontera where sherry comes from.  To be called sherry, it has to come from a small triangle of land in the province of Cadiz.  In September every year, the sherry festival takes place to celebrate the grape harvest.  A three-week extravaganza involving sherry, horses and flamenco with an abundance of colour and joie de vivre.  Visit the bodegas and sample the wide variety of sherry available from the pale delicate Fino to the heavy and sweet Pedro Ximenez.

Andalusia in the south boasts an array of particularly Spanish fiestas, such as the Bienal de Flameco which takes place every two years, on the even years, in and around Seville and Jerez.  Spain’s most skilled Flamenco dancers can be seen displaying their energetic and expressive dances.   While the Feria del Caballo in Jerez, the annual horse fiesta every May, is a real spectacle with superb displays of horsemanship from cowboys, classical dressage to polo and carriage driving.   There are lots of parades and plenty of traditional, handsomely decked out riders, with their distinctive dark hats and ladies sitting behind them managing to look elegant with the layers of their flamenco dresses draped across the back of the horses.

If sport is your thing, Spain boasts some world class golf courses across the country, some wonderful cycling trails through its mountain ranges, motor cycle racing at the Catalonia Grand Prix, then there is a whole range of water sports, such as sailing, wind surfing and kitesurfing.

And if this is all too much for you, there are so many beaches to kick back and relax on – choose from the beaches on the north coast, the Costa Verde with its charming villages and coves set in the verdant nature, the Balearic Islands or the pine grove-lined beaches of the Costa de la Luz.