Spain

Spain is a beautiful and diverse country located in the southwest of Europe. It shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. To the Northeast it borders with France and the tiny principality of Andorra. To the West its limits are defined by the Balearic Islands located in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea. Its Southern most territories are the picturesque Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla located in the North of Africa. This is why travelling to Spain is likely to be a enriching experience since tourism in the country offers a wide variety of destinations, activities and landscapes.

Spain is a country of large geographical and cultural diversity, often a surprise for tourists who are expecting to find a country mostly known for beach tourism. Travel to Spain and you will find everything, from lush meadows, green valleys, hills and snowy mountains in the Northern regions to almost desert zones in the South. Its beaches are also famous and worth visiting, small and charming creeks in the North and wide white sand beaches on the South and Western parts of the country, without forgetting the exotic black sand beaches of the volcanic Canary Islands.

Every year millions of tourists decide to travel to Spain, the country has been one of the most important tourist destinations of the last decades becoming the third most popular travel destination in Europe.

One of the better known cities is Madrid, capital city of Spain. Due to its central location, in the heart of Spain it has excellent communications with the rest of the provinces and is seat to the Spanish government and to the Royal Palace where the kings of Spain usually dwell. The city features distinctly winding streets, all of which seem to be heading either up or down and gather in the central square in the centre of the city.

Barcelona is probably one of the favourite destinations for tourists, a worldwide known city whose name recalls the awesome art of the architect Gaudi, the celebration of the 1992 Olympic games, and the cosmopolitan atmosphere of its streets. Tourism in the city offers also the possibility of enjoying its beaches and water sports.

MADRID

Which is the real Madrid? It seems the city isn't just one homogenous area, but a conglomeration of many Madrids, with culturally and historically distinct areas linked together.

You could speak of the historical Madrid, with the last gasp of the Moorish Quarter and the elaborate churches of Montserrat and Santa Barbara. There's also the Orient Palace, which looks out over a magnificent panorama of the gardens of La Casa de Campo, the Museum of El Prado, the Casón del Buen Retiro and Villahermosa Palace.

Then there is the cultural Madrid, with museums like the world-famous Museo del Prado and its Goya and El Greco holdings. Royal Madrid is typified by the magnificent 18th century Palace and its botanical gardens.

Finally, there is the modern city of Madrid, a thriving city filled with booming businesses, world-class restaurants, happening bars and metropolitan locals.

Whichever Madrid you visit, you'll probably focus most of your attention on the town's center. Here, the Puerta del Sol is the center point of a line that connects most of the city's important sites, like the Plaza Mayor, Madrid's Ciudad Antigua, and the convents of Descalzas Reales and Encarnación.

Madrid became Spain's capital simply through its geographical position at the centre of Iberia. When Felipe II moved the seat of government here in 1561 his aim was to create a symbol of the unification and centralization of the country, and a capital from which he could receive the fastest post and communications from each corner of the nation.

The site itself had few natural advantages - it is 300km from the sea on a 650-metre-high plateau, freezing in winter, burning in summer - and it was only the determination of successive rulers to promote a strong central capital that ensured Madrid's survival and development. Nonetheless, it was a success, and today Madrid is a vast, predominantly modern city, with a population of some three million and growing. The streets at the heart of the city are a pleasant surprise, with pockets of medieval buildings and narrow, atmospheric alleys, dotted with the oddest of shops and bars, and interspersed with eighteenth-century Bourbon squares.

By comparison with the historic cities of Spain - Toledo , Salamanca, Sevilla , Granada - there may be few sights of great architectural interest, but the monarchs did acquire outstanding picture collections, which formed the basis of the Prado Museum . This has long ensured Madrid a place on the European art tour, and the more so since the 1990s arrival - literally down the street - of the Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza galleries, state-of-the-art homes to fabulous arrays of modern Spanish painting (including Picasso's Guernica ) and European and American masters.

As you get to grips with the place you soon realize that it's the inhabitants - the madrileños - that are the capital's key attraction: hanging out in the traditional cafés or the summer terrazas, packing the lanes of the Sunday Rastro flea market, or playing hard and very, very late in a thousand bars , clubs, discos and tascas . Whatever Barcelona or San Sebastian might claim, the Madrid scene, immortalized in the movies of Pedro Almodovar, remains the most vibrant and fun in the country. The city is also in better shape than for many years past, after a £500-million refurbishment for its role as 1992 European Capital of Culture and the ongoing impact of a series of urban rehabilitation schemes - funded jointly by the European Union and local government - in the older barrios (districts) of the city. Improvements are also being made to the transport network, with extensions to the metro, the construction of new ring roads and the excavation of a series of road tunnels designed to bring relief to the city's overcrowded streets. The authorities are even preparing a bid for the 2012 Olympics.

The city's layout is pretty straightforward. At the heart of Madrid - indeed at the very heart of Spain since all distances in the country are measured from here - is the Puerta del Sol (often referred to as just "Sol"). Around it lie the oldest parts of Madrid, neatly bordered to the west by the Rio Manzanares , to the east by the park of El Retiro , and to the north by the city's great thoroughfare, the Gran Via .

Within this very compact area, you're likely to spend most of your time. Madrids three big museums - the Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza and Reina Sofía - lie in a "golden triangle" just west of El Retiro and centred around Paseo del Prado, while over towards the river are the oldest, Habsburg parts of town, centred around the beautiful arcaded Plaza Mayor . After Gran Via, the most important streets are Calle Alcalá and its continuation, Calle Mayor , which cut right through the centre from the main post office at Plaza de Cibeles to the Bourbon Palacio Real .

There truly is a fantastic choice of Hotels , Hostels and other accomodations to suit all tatses and pockets in and around Madrid.

BARCELONA

Barcelona has a culture and history unrivalled in Spain, as well as a modern cosmopolitan attitude that makes it a special place to be.

It's perhaps because the Bourbons of Spain absorbed the independent kingdom in the eighteenth century that the locals of this city stubbornly hold on to traditions the way they do. They refuse to stop speaking the Catalan language despite pressure from the rest of Spain, they hold raucous festivals to the patron saints of the city year 'round and they take care that the monuments and remains from all the different stages in the city's history still stand.

Barcelona is particularly proud of the Modernist architectural genius Antonia Gaudi, whose buildings have been designated as sites in the World Heritage List. Güell Park and Palace and the the Mila Home are particularly revered in Barcelona, as is the unfinished but stunning Church of La Sagrada Familia.

The oldest region in Barcelona is the Gothic Quarter, an oval-shaped region loaded with Gothic style buildings like its Gothic cathedral, old City Hall Building, the Episcopal Palace and the splendid Palace of the Generalitat, home of the Catalan government. La Rambla, on the other hand, is the most famous and typical street in Barcelona, and therefore one of the places that is most frequented by visitors.

The best way to introduce yourself to Barcelona is to stroll along the boulevard night or day and soak up the sights of the meeting-plazas, the open-air markets, the florist stalls, the historical buildings. Or you could just watch the world go by from any one of the green plazas filled with locals and guests.

One of the most famous areas located in the old part of BARCELONA is the Las Ramblas district. It is around 1.2 kms in length and is basically divided into two areas, one is the seedy part at the southern end and the other which leads up to the Placa Catalyuna. The local council have restricted the movement of vehicles along Las Ramblas which makes it an ideal pedestrian walkway at anytime during the day or night. It is littered with artists, flower and animal stalls and many other local characters who frequent this romantic and intriguing part of the city.