Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia is a vibrant city. Situated between verdant mountain ranges and the Mediterranean waters, this is surely a very popular destination. It is easy to go beyond the tourist spots however, to start exploring living and breathing neighbourhoods uncolonised by mass tourism. Areas including El Raval, Born, Gràcia, Sant Antoni offer sensitively restored historic buildings, new museums, small squares and lively bars and restaurants which delight the discerning visitor. The luminous CCCB and MACBA art galleries in Raval, reflect the modern Barcelona creative vibe. 

Next to the Basque region, Catalonia may have the most sophisticated cuisine in Spain, reflecting a passion for food & wine and a diverse cultural history of the land. There are many innovative chefs creating dishes at the cutting edge of Catalan cuisine, in and outside Barcelona. That said, inviting rustic-style Mediterranean cooking remains in generous supply. 

Barcelona is surrounded by some prestigious wine regions. In particular Penedès, Priorat, Terra Alta and Monsant are alluring Catalan wine regions. The Penedès region southwest of Barcelona is renowned for its Cava, the local sparkling wine, produced from grapes like Xarel-lo, Macabeo and Parellada. Serious brut Cavas are on a par with the very best French Champagnes. A handful of wine makers produce quality table wines too. The Mediterranean Penedès landscape with its valleys and mountains is beautiful.

The landscape of Priorat, south of Penedès, is decidedly more rugged and really captivating. The terrain is vertiginous and difficult to cultivate, with old vines giving low yields. Wines tend to be bold and powerful, with plenty of dark fruit. More gentle wines with a subtle mineral finish are also being made. The main grape varieties here are Garnacha and Carinena. The area is perhaps reminiscent of the Douro Valley in Portugal, which too has a rough terrain, precarious terraces and slate soils. Priorat wines are highly regarded; they feature on the wine lists of some of the finest restaurant in the world.

Priorat and its hinterland offer fine historic towns. One of our favourites in the region is Tarragona, a delightful historic city. The town had a grand Roman past, which is still on display throughout Tarragona, from the Roman forum and Amphitheatre to the pillars and inscriptions encrusted in various shop fronts. UNESCO gave recognition to the importance of Tarragona’s heritage by classifying the Roman archaeological ensemble as a World Heritage site  

Rioja is Spain’s most famous wine producing area, located in the province of the same name. Rioja has a centuries old tradition of wine making, and it is still widely regarded as Spain’s premier wine region, since so many wines continue to earn high ratings from the international wine press.

This wine region with its beguiling landscapes is divided into 3 vine growing areas, all producing rather different wines. In Rioja Baja, the Granacha grape variety thrives in warm, relatively low altitudes. Then there are the higher, cooler districts of Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa, where the Tempranillo and Graciano grapes flourish. The majority of Riojas are red but some white are made too, the main white grape varieties are Viura and Malvasía. There is really a lot of good Rioja wine, but one can argue the most distinctive wines are made by vineyard-designated wine producers.

Rioja offers charming towns and villages abound. Places like Laguardia, Briones and Cenicero are ancient historic hilltop settlements, overlooking the wide expanses of vineyards and forests, with high mountains as a dramatic backdrop. Logroño is Rioja’s capital and economical centre as well as its largest city. It has a charming old town, the “casco antiguo”, the epicenter of a busy tapas scene. Also worth a detour is the wine town of Haro, a lively little place, on the banks of the Ebro River where many classic Rioja bodegas (wineries) are headquartered.

When it comes to local gastronomy, this wine region has simple but delicious treats. Rioja’s distinctive dishes include slow-roasted lamb over vine prunings and conjonudo (chorizo with egg and red pepper served on bread). Accomplished cooking is on display too, lifted to great heights by refined Rioja wines.

Basque Country in the northeast of Spain is a strikingly beautiful region, where green, thickly wooded mountains and hills dominate the landscape. A mostly rocky and wild coastline shelters the land from the Atlantic Ocean. The hillsides close to the sea are famous for the Txakoli vineyards, producing a fresh, lightly sparkling white wine low in alcohol but with good acidity. But perhaps the most renowned aspect of Basque Country is its cuisine: a plethora of innovative chefs have been creating imaginative dishes of local ingredients for decades. The high quality of the frequently Michelin starred fine restaurants of this region is one of the pillars of the current international prestige of Spanish cuisine.

Basque Country is well-known too for its elegant and historic cities like Bilbao and San Sebastian. The region’s biggest city, Bilbao, is real urban success story. Here one encounters striking contemporary, neo-classical, Beaux-Arts and medieval architecture, agreeably blended. It is also a serious food town with Michelin star restaurants as well as a large number of pinxtos bars (Basque-style tapas bars) serving often extraordinarily innovative finger food.  Like in that other famous Basque city San Sebastian, here traditional bar food is often elevated to a fine art.