Catalonia

Barcelona, the capital, spreads along the coast between the hills of Montjuïc and Collserola: a medieval old town by the harbour, the nineteenth-century grid of the Eixample with Gaudí's Sagrada Família and his houses on Passeig de Gràcia, and beaches along the shore. It is where most visitors arrive, and the city's quarters, museums and Gaudí buildings fill several days of their own.

About an hour north-west of Barcelona, Montserrat, the “sawn mountain”, rises above the Llobregat valley in a wall of rounded pinnacles of conglomerate rock. Halfway up, the Benedictine monastery keeps the Black Madonna, La Moreneta, patron saint of Catalonia, in a chapel above the basilica's high altar, and the Escolania, its boys' choir and one of the oldest in Europe, sings at services in the basilica. Paths lead from the monastery along the cliff to the Santa Cova, the chapel at the cave where legend says the image was found, and up to Sant Jeroni, the summit, at 1,236 metres. Trains from Plaça d'Espanya in Barcelona connect with the cable car at the Aeri de Montserrat stop and with the rack railway at Monistrol, both climbing to the monastery. A weekday morning is the quietest time to come.

Girona, about forty minutes north of Barcelona by high-speed train, climbs in layers above the river Onyar, where houses painted in ochre and red line the water and footbridges cross it. A broad baroque stairway rises to the cathedral, whose single Gothic nave, about 23 metres across, spans the church without aisles, and below it the stepped lanes of the Call, the medieval Jewish quarter, wind down toward the river. Near the cathedral, the Banys Àrabs are a Romanesque bathhouse built in the Moorish manner, and the Passeig de la Muralla follows the old walls round the upper town. In May, during Temps de Flors, the old town fills with flowers.

The Costa Brava, the “wild coast”, runs from Blanes to the French border, pine-covered cliffs and coves between resort towns. Tossa de Mar keeps the Vila Vella, a walled medieval quarter with towers on a headland above its beach. Further north, Palafrugell's three seaside villages, Calella, Llafranc and Tamariu, keep their fishing-boat beaches and low white houses, and Begur, under a ruined castle on its hill, looks down on coves such as Aiguablava and Sa Tuna; inland, Pals and Peratallada are stone villages of narrow lanes inside old walls. Off L'Estartit, the Medes Islands are a protected marine reserve for diving and snorkelling, and at L'Escala the ruins of Empúries set a Greek trading town and a Roman one side by side above the shore. The camí de ronda, the old customs guards' path, links many coves along the cliffs, and some are reached only on foot or by boat; in July and August the small car parks above the coves fill early in the day.

Figueres, the market town of the Empordà plain where Salvador Dalí was born, holds the Dalí Theatre-Museum, which the painter made from the ruins of the town's theatre: a red tower crowned with giant eggs, a glass dome over the old stage, and the crypt beneath it where he is buried. Over the hills to the east, Cadaqués is a white village round a bay of fishing boats, and at Portlligat, the cove just north of it, the house Dalí built out of fishermen's huts is visited in small groups on a booking made ahead. Púbol, south toward Girona, has the castle he gave to his wife, Gala. Beyond Cadaqués, the Cap de Creus is a natural park of bare rock shaped by the tramuntana wind, ending at a lighthouse on the easternmost point of the Iberian Peninsula.

Inland from Girona, the Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park around Olot holds some forty volcanic cones. Paths climb to the crater of Santa Margarida, with a small hermitage standing on its grassy floor, and to the Croscat, cut open on one side by an old quarry, while the Fageda d'en Jordà is a beech wood growing on a lava flow. To the east, Besalú is entered over the Fluvià by a fortified medieval bridge with a gate tower at its middle, and keeps a Jewish quarter with the remains of a ritual bath; to the south, Rupit is a stone village reached over a footbridge hung across its stream.

In the eastern Pyrenees, the Cerdanya is a broad, sunny valley at more than 1,000 metres, shared with France. Puigcerdà, its main town, stands on a hill near the border, and nearby Llívia is a Spanish town entirely surrounded by France. The valley's slopes carry downhill and cross-country ski areas, and its meadows make summer walking country. To the east, the Camprodon valley has villages of stone and slate, and Camprodon itself is entered over a high-arched medieval bridge across the Ter.

In the high western Pyrenees, the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park, Catalonia's only national park, is granite country of glacial lakes, pine woods and meadows where streams wind in loops, the “twisted waters” of its name. The Estany de Sant Maurici, under the twin spires of Els Encantats, is a walk from the village of Espot on the eastern side; on the west the park is entered from the Vall de Boí, and walkers on the Carros de Foc circuit cross it from hut to hut over several days. In the Vall de Boí itself, nine Romanesque churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries are together a UNESCO World Heritage Site; their finest wall paintings were taken to the MNAC in Barcelona, and copies stand in their place at Taüll.

North of the main ridge, the Val d'Aran is the one valley of Catalonia that drains to the Atlantic: the Garonne rises here and flows north into France. Aranese is official in the valley alongside Catalan and Spanish, and its villages of stone and slate, Vielha, the capital, among them, gather round Romanesque churches. In winter the ski area of Baqueira-Beret, at the head of the valley, is the draw; in summer the valley is walking country of meadows and high lakes. It is reached from the south through the Vielha tunnel, and from the Pallars over the high pass of the Bonaigua.

On the western plain, Lleida is crowned by La Seu Vella, its old cathedral, on a fortified hill above the river Segre. To the south-east, at the foot of the Prades mountains, the Cistercian abbey of Poblet, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is still a working monastery, and its church holds the tombs of the kings of the Crown of Aragon. Nearby, Montblanc keeps long stretches of its medieval walls, and local legend makes it the town where Sant Jordi slew the dragon. With the monasteries of Santes Creus and Vallbona de les Monges, Poblet forms the Cistercian Route.

South of Poblet, the Priorat is a rugged hill country of steep terraced vineyards on dark slate, the llicorella, under the cliffs of the Montsant range. Its red wines, of Garnatxa and Carinyena, hold the highest rank of Spanish wine denomination, a status shared only with Rioja. The ruined charterhouse of Scala Dei, whose priory gave the district its name, stands below the Montsant, Siurana sits on the edge of a limestone cliff above a reservoir, and Falset is the market town. Most small cellars receive visitors by appointment, and the roads are narrow and winding, so a tasting day wants a driver who does not drink, or a tour.

At the southern end of the region, the Ebro reaches the sea through a flat delta of rice fields, lagoons, reed beds and long, empty beaches, much of it a natural park. The paddies are flooded from spring through summer and harvested in the autumn, and the lagoons draw flamingos, herons and many other waterbirds. The land is level enough to cycle, the Trabucador, a narrow sandbar, runs out to the Banya peninsula, and the sheltered bays to the north and south of the delta farm mussels and oysters. Deltebre, on the river, is the main town and a base for the park.

Tarragona, the Roman Tarraco, keeps its Roman remains among the streets of the living city, together a UNESCO World Heritage Site: an amphitheatre on the slope above the beach, the vaults of the circus running under the old town, the Praetorium tower and long stretches of wall along the Passeig Arqueològic. A few kilometres north, the aqueduct known as the Pont del Diable crosses a wooded valley on two tiers of arches. The Romanesque and Gothic cathedral crowns the old town, and the Serrallo, the fishing quarter by the port, is the place for seafood; the ruins and the old town fill a full day. To the south-west, the Costa Daurada is a coast of long sandy beaches, from Salou, beside the PortAventura theme park, to Cambrils and its fishing harbour.

West of Barcelona, the Penedès is the heartland of cava, a sparkling wine made by the traditional method shared with Champagne. Sant Sadurní d'Anoia stands above a maze of cava cellars, many of them open for tastings booked ahead, and Vilafranca del Penedès, the market town, is one of the great centres of the castells; both are on the commuter line from Barcelona. On the coast, about forty minutes from Barcelona by train, Sitges has a string of town beaches and an old quarter on a headland where the church of Sant Bartomeu i Santa Tecla faces the sea. Its Carnival, in the days before Lent, and a festival of fantasy and horror film each October fill the town.