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Spain & Portugal 2013: 25 top holidays

Away from the high-rise costas, you’ll find parts of Spain and Portugal unchanged from — or perhaps reverting to — the Middle Ages. Once deserted villages are bustling as those who left to seek their fortunes in the city return. In Jaen, steep fields are worked with horses. On the Ebro, fish traps of 16th-century design are still in use, and in bars in the Bragança region of northern Portugal, drinkers toss salt over their shoulders with every other sip to confound the devil (with questionable success: across the border, a record one in four Spaniards is unemployed).

The campo, while beautiful, isn’t always pretty, but for those seeking an authentic experience, small, specialist tour operators are finally making the countryside easier to explore. New trips are on sale to less familiar areas such as Extremadura and the Sierra de Aracena. Two great rivers, the Douro and the Guadalquivir, are opening up to cruising, and there are more opportunities than ever to indulge in brilliant, innovative Spanish cuisine.

And there’s more good news. Overall holiday costs in Spain have fallen by 41% since 2008: a three-course meal for two with wine in Malaga, which cost £42.88 back then, is now only £22.32.

Yet as living costs fall, flight prices are rising. Two in three of us now put together our own trips to Spain — buying flights, car hire and accommodation separately, rather than booking a package — and if that applies to you, the advice is to book early. Returns to Malaga at Easter are more than £170, and flights to Valencia during the school summer holidays are topping £190.

Unless stated, flights are not included — you’ll find travel details at the end of this article

1 Walk the Sierra 
Andalusia

In a remote valley between Aracena and Castañuelo, on the eastern edge of the Sierra de Aracena y Picos de Aroche natural park, you’ll find Finca El Moro (fincaelmoro.com). The homemade bread, home-cured jamon and chorizo, home-pressed oil and organic fruit and veg will conspire — with the pool, the views, the sunshine and the charm of your hosts, Nick and Hermione Tudor — to keep you rooted, but you must resist. New for 2013 is a tailor-made walking holiday, with rambles radiating from the finca and ranging from nowhere in particular to a two-day circular hike through the cork oaks and wild-flower meadows, staying overnight in the village of Alajar. A week starts at £595pp, including accommodation, all meals and drinks. Fly to Seville and rent a car.

2 Authentic Spain by bike 
Extremadura

If you’ve searched in vain for the “real” Spain, you haven’t been to Extremadura, the region to the north of Andalusia, on the Portuguese border. This is Luis Buñuel’s Tierra Sin Pan (Land Without Bread), a place of extraordinary beauty and hopeless self-promotion, until recently all but unknown to tourists. Freedom Treks (01273 224066,www.freedomtreks.co.uk) has a new self-guided cycling week, starting out in Oropesa and covering 160 miles via the Gredos Mountains, Plasencia, Trujillo, and the Monfrague National Park, ending up in Caceres. You’ll stay in paradors along the way, and prices start at £835pp, including luggage transfers, but not travel; bike hire is £96. Fly into Madrid, then take a train to Oropesa (£14.50). The return leg from Caceres costs £27.

3 Ride to El Rocio 
Andalusia

Few Englishmen have seen El Rocio, site of Spain’s biggest pilgrimage and the spiritual heart of Andalusia. With its streets of sand, hitching posts and huge livery yards, it is also the holiday home of Spanish equestrianism, and the only authentic way to arrive is on a puro caballo Andalus — a purebred Andalusian horse. Maria Elena Dendaluce will be your guide, leading you from La Cortijo La Corbera, south of Seville, on a six-night ride along the pilgrim routes to El Rocio, crossing the Doñana National Park, sleeping in traditional haciendas and paying a visit to the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art, in Jerez. The rides take place in spring and autumn; the price is £1,900pp, all-inclusive, with Equiberia (00 34 689 343974, equiberia.com). Fly to Seville.

4 Explore Grazalema 
Cadiz

Contrary to popular belief, the rain in Spain does not fall mainly on the plain, but on the highlands of the Grazalema National Park. The limestone peaks force warm Atlantic airstreams upwards, where they condense, then fall as rain.Go in late spring and you’ll find the high meadows kaleidoscopic with wild flowers, including bee and lax-flowered orchids, wild peonies and swathes of wild broom. Walk Andalucia (020 8385 2024, walk-andalucia.com) has an eight-day wild-flower walking break led by the author and botanist Eva Bratek. You’ll eat at local restaurants and sleep in Moorish houses in the village of Torrox by night. The price is £799pp, including most meals and airport transfers, departing on April 6, May 18 or June 1. Fly to Malaga.

5 Cycle the Silver Coast 
Porto to Lisbon

The Costa de Prata, running south from Porto to Lisbon, is Portugal’s newest playground. As you cycle on clifftops, through forests, down quiet country lanes and along the magnificent 25-mile stretch that skirts the Ria de Aviero, a stunning blue lagoon, you’ll probably wonder why nobody told you about this place before. Skedaddle (0191 265 1110, skedaddle.co.uk) has a nine-day self-guided bike ride, covering between 27 and 40 miles a day, from £895pp, B&B. The price includes luggage transfers, GPS navigation and airport transfers; bike hire is £100. You’ll need flights into Porto and out of Lisbon.

6 Garden tour 
Andalusia

All holidays need a soundtrack — and for this new Land of Castles, Palaces and Gardens tour, from the Royal Horticultural Society (0800 804 8710,rhsgardenholidays.com), you need Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain. Inspired by Debussy, these evocations of the lachrymose beauty of the Generalife, part of the Alhambra, in Granada, and the Alcazar gardens in Cordoba are underpinned by coquettish echoes of the habanera, suggesting secret assignations under a Spanish moon. Listen as you visit the Generalife, the Alcazar in Seville, Casa del Rey Moro, in Ronda, and the gardens of Cordoba by night. The six-night trip starts at £1,589pp, including flights, transfers, entry fees, breakfast and some lunches and dinners.

7 The road less travelled 
Extremadura

New from Kirker (020 7593 2283, kirkerholidays.com) is a seven-night journey through Extremadura and Castile, exploring the architectural, cultural and natural delights of these little-known regions. The tour starts in Madrid and spends three nights in a parador at Trujillo, visiting the Roman city of Merida — perhaps second only to Rome itself for the splendour of its ruins — before moving on for four nights at the Hotel Palacio de los Velada, in Avila. From there you’ll tour Salamanca, considered by many to be the most beautiful city in Spain, Segovia and El Escorial, Philip II’s palace, before returning to Madrid. The price is £1,889pp, including flights, breakfast, five dinners and one lunch. 

8 Spain by train, part 1 
Castile-La Mancha

The first of these is a brand-new trail of three cities, taking in the old capital, Toledo, the new capital, Madrid, and Barcelona, the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia, over eight nights, with not an airport in sight. You set off from London St Pancras, travelling via Paris and Biarritz, where you’ll spend a night, then on to Madrid for lunch, a guided tour and shopping. The following day you visit Toledo — beautiful, but as melancholic as a deposed king — before taking the high-speed AVE service for a four- night stay in Barcelona. The price is £1,298pp, including all travel, B&B accommodation in three- and four-star hotels, four dinners, two lunches and all excursions, through Treyn (01904 734940, railholidays.com). 

9 Spain by train, part 2 
Aragon and Navarre

Your second departure is a five-night feast aboard the luxurious Al Andalus train, accommodated in splendidly restored 1930s rolling stock. Starting with a tour of Zaragoza, you then head off to Pamplona, sampling tapas en route, before a detour by coach to a bodega in La Rioja for a wine tasting. You’ll spend the next two nights in the university city of Salamanca before taking the train east to Avila and Segovia, finally arriving in Madrid. Prices start at £2,350pp, all-inclusive, with Luxury Train Club (01249 890205, luxurytrainclub.com).

10 Searching for wildcats 
Navarre

Head into the sparsely populated valleys of northern Navarre — the tiny autonomous community between Aragon and the Basque country — and you’ll find a thriving population of Felis silvestris, aka the European wildcat. The Continent’s answer to the snow leopard is best tracked in winter, when it stands out against a white background, and Naturetrek (01962 733051, naturetrek.co.uk) has a new six-day foray into this rugged land in search of it, as well as birds such as lammergeyers, snowfinches and Alpine accentors. The one-off trip departs on March 10 and costs £995pp, including flights, transfers and all meals.