4 Best Sights in Galicia, Asturias, and Cantabria, Spain

For a bird's-eye view of the city, join one of the tours arranged by the cathedral museum that takes you across the cubiertas, the granite steps of the cathedral roofs. Pilgrims made the same 100-foot climb in medieval times to burn their travel-worn clothes below the Cruz dos Farrapos (Cross of Rags). Tours are only available in Spanish.

This steep peninsula—the old fishermen's quarter—is now the main nightlife hub. At sunset, the sidewalk in front of bar El Planeta ( Tránsito de las Ballenas 4), overlooking the harbor, is a prime spot to join locals drinking Asturian cider. From the park at the highest point on the headland, beside Basque artist Eduardo Chillida's massive sculpture Elogio del Horizonte (In Praise of the Horizon), there's a panoramic view of the coast and city.

Dotting the Asturian coast east and west of Llanes are bufones, cavelike cavities that expel water when waves are sucked in. These active blowholes shoot streams of water as high as 100 feet at unpredictable intervals. They are clearly marked so you can find them, and there are barriers to protect you when they expel water. There is one east of Playa Ballota; try to watch it in action from this mirador east of Llanes, between the villages of Cué and Andrin. If you miss the spurt, the view is still worth a stop—on a clear day you can see the coastline all the way east to Santander.

As you approach the parador of Fuente Dé, at the head of the valley northwest of the hamlet of Espinama, you'll see a wall of gray rock jutting 1,999 meters (6,560 feet) into the air. At the top is a tiny hut: El Mirador del Cable (the cable-car lookout point). Get there via a 800-meter (2,625-foot) funicular (€20 round-trip). After you exit the funicular, you can hike along the Ávila Mountain pasturelands, rich in wildlife, between the central and eastern massifs of the Picos de Europa National Park.