The 14 Best Travel Experiences in Spain

Gaudi's still-unfinished basilica rises in melting, organic stone spires unlike any other building on Earth, over 140 years into construction.

Inside, columns branch like trees to support a ceiling washed in colour from vast stained-glass windows.

The mix of Gothic scale and Art Nouveau strangeness makes both the exterior facades and the interior light equally worth lingering over.

The Alhambra is a palace and fortress complex built by the Moorish rulers of Granada in the 13th and 14th centuries, representing the pinnacle of Islamic art in Europe.

Its intricate geometric tilework, carved stucco, horseshoe arches, and reflecting pools are set against the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada.

A dramatic ship-prow-shaped fortress rising from a rocky spur above the confluence of two rivers, widely credited as one of the visual inspirations for Disney's Cinderella Castle.

Slate-topped conical turrets, a moat, and a commanding position over the Castilian plains give it an almost storybook silhouette, striking from the valley floor and from its own tower alike.

Inside, opulent halls and a royal armoury trace its history as a fortress, royal palace, and military academy.

For a week before Easter, Seville's centuries-old religious brotherhoods carry ornate wooden floats bearing statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary through the streets on the shoulders of hidden bearers, accompanied by hooded penitents and mournful saeta singing.

Balconies fill and cafes stay open past midnight as processions cross the city continuously, culminating in the sleepless Madrugada from Maundy Thursday into Good Friday.

The Sa Calobra climb switchbacks up 26 hairpins through the limestone Serra de Tramuntana, including a spiralling loop where the road passes beneath itself, before dropping to a hidden cove on Mallorca's northwest coast.

Wider routes through the range link terraced olive groves, the monastery at Lluc and the ridge-top village of Deia.

The road is a pilgrimage climb for road cyclists and one of Europe's most celebrated stretches of tarmac.

Spain's former imperial capital sits on a granite hill almost encircled by a bend in the Tagus River, its skyline of church towers, synagogues, and mosques layered up over centuries of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim rule.

The Alcázar fortress and Gothic cathedral anchor a warren of narrow medieval streets that fan out below, and the whole old city is compact enough to see on foot in a single, dense day.

Ronda is a dramatic Andalusian city built on a rocky plateau divided by a 120-metre-deep gorge, over which the 18th-century Puente Nuevo bridge arches in an astonishing feat of engineering.

The combination of Moorish old town, bullring, and vertiginous cliff-edge position makes Ronda one of Spain's most striking cities.

Just off Barcelona's Las Ramblas, La Boqueria has traded since the 13th century and sits behind a stained-glass modernist entrance.

Stalls run to jamon iberico, glistening seafood, cured cheeses and fruit cut and stacked for the counter, while several bars at the back serve cooked plates to whoever can claim a stool.

It works as both a genuine working market and a place to eat your way through lunch standing up.

The largest Gothic cathedral in the world, raised on the site of Seville's main mosque after the Reconquest and keeping its minaret as the Giralda bell tower.

Columbus's tomb is carried by four figures representing the kingdoms of Spain.

The tower is climbed by 35 ramps rather than stairs, built wide enough to ride a horse up.

A small, pine-fringed cove inside a protected natural park on Mallorca's southeast coast, with shallow, startlingly clear turquoise water that stays calm most of the year.

Because it sits within Mondrago Natural Park, development around the cove is deliberately limited, which keeps it looking much like the rest of the island did before mass tourism.

It's a short walk from the car park through scrub pine, which filters out casual visitors.

Northern Spain's most famous wine region pairs medieval hilltop villages with some of the boldest contemporary winery architecture anywhere, most notably Frank Gehry's titanium-ribboned Hotel Marques de Riscal, set against vineyards and the Sierra de Cantabria mountains.

Tempranillo has been grown here since Roman times, alongside cutting-edge design.

A lava tube on Lanzarote formed when the Corona volcano erupted around 3,000 years ago, running six kilometres down towards the sea.

A kilometre of it is open, lit in ochre and green by the artist Jesus Soto, and the tour ends with an optical illusion so convincing that most visitors refuse to believe it until it is explained.

Every last Wednesday of August, the small town of Bunol erupts into a full-scale tomato fight, as trucks dump over a hundred tonnes of overripe tomatoes into the streets for an hour of pure chaos.

What began in 1945 as a spontaneous food fight between friends has grown into a ticketed, capped-attendance event, with the town's fire department hosing down both streets and participants once the hour is up.

Spain's largest theme park, split into six themed lands from Polynesia to the Wild West, best known for Shambhala, one of Europe's tallest and fastest hyper-coasters.

An adjoining water park (Costa Caribe) and a Ferrari-branded park under the same resort umbrella make it easy to stretch a visit across several days on the Costa Dorada coast.

It draws heavily from both Spanish domestic tourists and the broader European package-holiday market along this stretch of coastline.