North Spain is more than just a good walk
Switch southern hotspots for roads less travelled, says Ann Macdonald
Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain’s Galicia has long been attracting widespread attention as a destination for walkers hiking the famous pilgrims’ trail. Yet, for the most part, northern Spain has struggled to achieve the same level of recognition as the tourism hotspots of southern Spain.
The one place in northern Spain that most people could identify is Pamplona in Navarra, as for seven days in July it is the place where they have a daily bull run through the streets.
When I attended this San Fermin festival many years ago, I can claim – with hand on heart – that it was quite the most terrifying spectacle I have ever witnessed. Ernest Hemingway’s novel
The Sun Also Rises celebrated Pamplona’s macho bull-running culture and helped drive tourism following the Second World War. Every year tens of thousands come to the city to test their courage against the bulls.
The danger is far greater than you could ever imagine.
If you get in the way of the bulls on their rapid journey to the town’s bull ring, you can expect to be tossed or, more dangerously in medical terms, gored.
But there is much more to northern Spain.
Start with the coast – about 800km of fabulous beaches that stretch from San Sebastian all the way to Cape Finisterre in Galicia.
San Sebastian has been a fashionable seaside place since the 19th Century: it was here that the Spanish royal family came to escape the stifling summer heat of Madrid.
Bilbao, further east, has more of an industrial port ambience and also the wonderful Guggenheim Museum, housing modern and contemporary art.
It is only relatively recently that driving west to Galicia from Santander has become quick and easy with the opening of a motorway.
Prior to that, there was a small road that hugged the coast, which given that the coastline features a multitude of long inlets, made progress painfully slow.
The official hiking path used by most people walking to Santiago is further inland, away from the coast and the other side of the Picos de Europa mountains.
The ‘French Way’, so-called because it begins in France, runs for about 800km of reasonably flat walking from Roncesvalles near the French border to Santiago.
One of the great hidden places of Spain is Galicia in the northwestern corner where you’ll find Santiago but sadly few pilgrims explore the province much beyond the city.
Bordered to its south by Portugal, it has some of the best beaches in Europe: hot in summer but not as ferociously hot as in Andalusia to the south.
MUCH MORE TO THIS PLACE THAN BULLS