Savvy Traveler: Visit Northern Spain to Basque in the sun

From the south to the mid-country and on to the Basque Country in the north, Spain is as different as the languages spoken throughout the land.

While Spanish is used in the greater majority of the country, other areas have co-official languages such as Aranese in Catalonia, Basque in the north and Catalan in Catalonia.

Previous visits to Spain were always by ourselves with our own agenda. This time out we hooked onto a group tour by Insight Vacations (www.insightvacations.com) starting in Madrid.

The Spanish capital is a great place to spend time and see sights ranging from the fabulous Prado Museum to the Royal Palace. It is a city of magnificent fountains and great restaurants.

We’ve found in the past that motor coaches used by most group tour operators are little more than a land variety of airline coach seats…too small for American butts and little to no knee room. Insight’s buses are the antithesis of this. That was appreciated on a long drive from Madrid to San Sebastian in Basque Country.

This beautiful little city, known as the “Pearl of the Cantabrian Coast,” is nestled on a shell-shaped bay framed by hills. The Old Quarter is a delightful page out of Old Spain with its numbered balconies.

Paris has a well-earned reputation for fine dining but that is easily rivaled by Basque Country and San Sebastian in particular. Here, however, a guest at an eatery can relax without the imperious stares of a Parisian waiter.

Following an overnight in San Sebastian, the coach made its way along the rugged Costa Vasca with its quaint little fishing villages. One of the “must see” sights is an outcropping of rock known locally as “El Raton,” the rat. If you look very closely and use an abundance of imagination, you can see the rat.

One of the highlights of this area is the surprising Guggenheim Museum of Art in Bilbao. The futuristic building sits on a square alongside a river, only a short walk from the town.

Some of the exhibits are quite whimsical while others delve into serious subjects such as the Holocaust. Spain’s history with the Jews and Roma (gypsies) is mixed at best and while today’s Spaniards prefer to think in modern terms, the shadow is still there.

James Bond would have loved Santander with its beautiful, Old World casino which opened in 1916. The only concession to modernity is the glass-walled elevator that takes gamblers from street level to the casino entrance.

The front room is all slot machines with a wide variety of games. The caution here is that they are all in Spanish and the local dialect. It’s easy to lose when you have no idea what you are doing. A door to a back room is closed and guards the privacy of high rollers who often include royalty and some of the richest people in Europe.

Along the way to the final destination of Santiago de Compostela are some exquisite churches dating back millennia. In Oviedo is the church of San Julián de los Prados, built by Alfonso II in 791. The ceiling is made of wood and amazingly well preserved.

Santiago is the terminal point, as it has been for centuries, for pilgrims who end a months-long trek at the city’s cathedral which contains the tomb of the Apostle St. James, whose remains were “miraculously” discovered in the Middle Ages. The cathedral is an amazing work of craftsmanship.

One of the benefits of a trip such as this is being accompanied by guides who are totally conversant in the history and culture of the regions through which you pass.

While the majority of tourists to Spain stop at Madrid and, perhaps, Toledo, they are missing much of what the country has to offer if they skip the north and Basque Country.