Recipefiesta

On the north coast of Spain you can see some of the world’s oldest art, explore a stunning medieval village, then watch surfers ride Atlantic swells

Exploring the area west of Santander feels like being in a time machine. Within a half-hour drive of the Cantabrian capital on Spain’s green northern coast, you can stumble upon prehistoric cave art, a perfectly preserved medieval town and a laid-back beach resort.

When I began my weekend trip, it was raining, so my journey started in the Upper Paleolithic period, at the Cave of Altamira, a Unesco world heritage site, staring up at some of the oldest art on Earth. Well, almost. The original cave was largely closed to the public decades ago to protect the fragile paintings, so we were inside the Neocueva, a painstakingly reconstructed replica built beside it that costs just €3 to enter.

While Málaga battles overtourism down the coast, this ‘forgotten’ working port city revels in its outsider status

Perched high on the battlements of Almería’s 10th-century Alcazaba, looking over the mosaic of flat roofs tumbling down to the sea, I’m reminded of author Gerald Brenan’s travel classic South from Granada, and his impression upon arriving in Almería in 1920: “Certainly, it seemed that the sea was doubly Mediterranean here, and the city … contained within it echoes of distant civilisations.”

A British adventurer, Hispanist and fringe member of the Bloomsbury group, Brenan had walked to Almería from where he was living near Granada, apparently to buy extra furniture in preparation for a visit from Virginia Woolf and friends. A century later, my journey here in a 30-year-old van from London is somewhat less notable, but as I marvel at the almost surreal incandescence of the Med, and the maze of ancient streets below me, I too am aware of a sensation of time travel.

Your top off-the-beaten track discoveries, from gorges in Galicia to vineyards in La Rioja
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Recently travelling from Madrid to San Sebastián, we spent three days in picturesque Briñas in La Rioja, staying at the beautiful Finca Torre de Briñas (doubles from €189 B&B). The neighbouring town, Haro, reached via a 40-minute walk by the Ebro River, hosts several of the largest wine producers in the region (CVNE and Muga are recommended). You can stop in and sample them, before heading into the town centre, which has several tapas spots to fuel the walk back to the hotel. Bliss.
Tom Dickson

A cycle tour of the Sierra Nevada backcountry proves a bumpy but beautiful ride through cinematic scenery

When you get into a van with an Englishman, five Irishmen and a Scotsman, you know someone is going to end up looking silly. For the next few days, my aim is for it not to be me. The van is taking us from busy Málaga to remote Andalucía for four days of gravel biking, something I have never done and for which I am not sure I am cut out.

Most of my cycling experience is limited to a flat five-mile commute through London, or long-distance road touring holidays. I love sailing across smooth asphalt, and have always been slightly snobby about the rough stuff. Why bump along when you can glide?

England’s largest forest has an aura reminiscent of parts of Canada or Finland. This year it celebrates its centenary with new trails and dark sky events

Deep in Kielder Forest, on the northern side of the vast Kielder Water stands Silvas Capitalis, a giant, two-storey timber head, one of the most striking of the 20 sculptures tucked between the pines. It’s an eerie sight, almost shocking; its mouth ajar, as if astounded by all it sees. It’s my first visit to Kielder, and my face has been wearing a similar expression since I stepped out of the car at the lakeside trying to take in the scale of the landscapes unfolding around me.

Kielder doesn’t look like England – at least, not the England I know. For a start, it’s vast; 250 sq miles (648 sq km), with 158m trees, mostly sitka spruce conifers planted by hand. And even though it’s a plantation, there’s a wilderness feel that reminds me of Finland or Canada; a great swathe of nature at its most intense. It’s a working forest, involving 500 full-time jobs (not including tourism) and 2026 marks the centenary of the very first plantings, when the UK was in need of timber reserves after the demands of the first world war.

Some of the best under-the-radar attractions across the Channel include steampunk wonders in Calais and the largest collection of impressionist works outside Paris

You don’t need to venture too far into France to find its wow factor. Indeed, within minutes of exiting the ferry or Channel Tunnel, you can be staring a fire-breathing dragon in the face. The Dragon de Calais is a 25-metre-long mechanical beast that stomps along the renovated sea front carrying 48 passengers on its back (adult ticket €9.50), emitting jets of fire, steam and water from its nostrils. It was created by the team behind Les Machines de L’île, a collection of steampunk wonders including a 12-metre elephant, in Nantes.

Designed as a shortcut between the Atlantic and the Med, today the scenic waterway from Toulouse to Sète is seen as a living ‘work of art’

Centuries before Donald Trump started playing around with the world economy, “tariff” was a levy paid to Spain by ships using the strait of Gibraltar; it was named for Tarifa, the town near the strait’s narrowest point. France’s kings had long dreamed of a waterway linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean: as well as depriving the Spanish monarch of easy money, it would save ships a long voyage around Spain and Portugal, risking storms and pirates.

From the Atlantic, vessels can reach Toulouse from the Gironde estuary (on the Garonne River), but not until the 1660s did anyone have a viable plan for the remaining 200km to the Med. Considered one of the biggest engineering feats of the 17th century, Pierre-Paul Riquet’s Canal du Midi (finished in 1681 and called the Canal Royal du Languedoc until the revolution) rewrote the history of transport and commerce in the south of France – for centuries it carried wheat and wine, people and post.