Bilbao and the Basque Country

Northern Spain is a misty land of green hills, low russet rooflines, and colorful fishing villages, and is home to the formerly industrial city of Bilbao, reborn as a center of art and architecture. Santander, once the main seaport for Old Castile on the Bay of Biscay, is in a mountainous zone wedged between the Basque Country and, to the west, Asturias. Santander and the entire Cantabrian region are cool summer refuges with sandy beaches, high sierra (including part of the Picos de Europa Mountains), and tiny highland towns. The semiautonomous Basque Country, with its steady drizzle (onomatopoetically called the siri-miri), damp verdant landscape, and rugged coastline, is a distinct national and cultural entity within the Spanish state. Navarra is considered Basque in the Pyrenees and merely Navarran in its southern reaches, along the Ebro River. La Rioja, tucked between the Sierra de la Demanda (a small-to-midsize mountain range that separates La Rioja from the central Castilian steppe) and the Ebro River, is Spain's premier wine country. More »