Spain Country

Introduction
The Spanish passion for living is deliciously contagious. Once away from the holiday costas, you could only be in Spain. In the cities, narrow twisting old streets suddenly open out to views of daring modern architecture, while spit-and-sawdust bars serving wine from the barrel rub shoulders with blaring, glaring discos.

Travel is easy, accommodation plentiful, the climate benign, the people relaxed, the beaches long and sandy, the food and drink easy to come by and full of regional variety. More than 50 million foreigners a year visit Spain, yet you can also travel for days and hear nothing but Spanish.

An Alhambra straight up with a side-order of Gaudí. Long a meeting point (and battleground) for myriad civilisations, the country brims over with remnants of a glorious, chaotic past. Fascinating pre-historical, Classical, Moorish and Christian sites rub shoulders with the marvellous legacies of 20th-century artists.

Geography:
Spain and Portugal share the Iberian Peninsula, a vaguely square-shaped realm at the far southwestern edge of Europe. Spain occupies some 80% of this peninsula and spreads over nearly 505,000 sq km (194,982 sq mi), making it the biggest country in Western Europe after France. More than half of the country is made up of vast, elevated tablelands - the mesetas - and five major mountain ranges stretch across the country. In fact, with an average altitude of 650m (2133ft), it's the highest European country after Switzerland. Landscapes range from the deserts of Andalucía to the green wetlands of Galicia, and from the sunbaked plains of Castilla-La Mancha to the rugged snowcapped Picos de Europa and Pyrenees.

Spain's coast is as varied as its interior. The long Mediterranean coast alternates between rocky coves and inlets and flatter, straighter stretches with some long beaches. The Atlantic coast has colder seas and whiter, sandier beaches. The Costa de la Luz, from the Strait of Gibraltar and the Portuguese border, has many long sandy beaches backed by dunes. In the northwest, Galicia is deeply indented by long estuaries called r í as, with plenty of sandy beaches. It also has Spain's most awesome cliffs, at Cabo Ortegal and the Serra da Capelada. Along the Bay of Biscay, the Cordillera Cant á brica comes almost down to the coast, and the beaches are mostly coves and small bays, though still sandy.

Destination Facts
Capital: Madrid
King: Juan Carlos I
President: José Luis Rodrí guez Zapatero
Government: parliamentary monarchy
Time zone: GMT +1
Area: 505000
Population: 42700000
People: Castilians, Basques, Catalans, Galicians, Moroccans, South Americans
Languages: Also known as Castellano.Official language of Basque country.Also known as Galician and Gallego.Official language in Catalunya.
Religion: 85% Roman Catholic; 2% Jewish; 2% Muslim
Currency: Euro (€)
GDP: Approx. €730000000000
Major industries: Textiles &-ent apparel, food ent-amp; beverages, metals, chemicals, shipbuilding, tourism
Major Trading Partners: EU (especially France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, UK, Benelux), US
Daylight Saving: From last Sunday in March to last Sunday in September
Country Dialing Code: 34

Getting there and away
Spain is dotted with international airports, and connections with the rest of Europe are good. If you're coming from the UK or from Morocco, you could consider a ferry. Otherwise, bus is the cheapest option, unless you're a whipper-snapper with an under-26 rail pass.

Getting around
Getting around within Spain is best done by bus; the bus network gives you better coverage and more mile for your dollar than the rail system. If you're swanning off to the Balearics, you can go the whole luxury hog and get a flight, or pleb it on a ferry.

Weather
The meseta and Ebro basin have a continental climate: scorching in summer, cold in winter and dry. Madrid regularly freezes in December, January and February and temperatures climb above 30° C (86F) in July and August (locals describe it as: nueve meses de invierno y tres de infierno - nine months of winter and three of hell). Valladolid on the northern meseta and Zaragoza in the Ebro basin are even drier, with only a little more rainfall per year than Alice Springs in Australia. The Guadalquivir basin in Andaluc í a is only a little wetter and positively broils in high summer. This area doesn't get as cold as the meseta in winter. The Pyrenees and the Cordillera Cant á brica backing the Bay of Biscay coast bear the brunt of cold northern and northwestern airstreams, which bring moderate temperatures and heavy rainfall (three or four times as much as Madrid's) to the northern and northwestern coasts, including cities like A Coru ña.

Even in high summer you never know when you might get a shower. The Mediterranean coast as a whole, and the Balearic Islands, get a little more rain than Madrid and the south can be even hotter in summer. Barcelona's weather is typical of the coast, milder than in inland cities, but more humid. In general you can rely on pleasant or hot temperatures just about everywhere from April to early November (plus March in the south, but minus a month at either end on the northern and northwestern coasts). In Andaluc í a there are plenty of warm, sunny days right through winter. In July and August, temperatures can get unpleasant, even unbearable, anywhere inland (unless you're high enough in the mountains). Snowfalls in the mountains start as early as October and some snow cover lasts all year on the highest peaks.

Warning
A bomb exploded in a car in Bilbao on 9 October 2007, seriously injuring one person. The attack seems to have been politically motivated. Travellers should be alert when visiting large cities and monitor news services for further developments.