Antiguo revels a new and more local side of San Sebastian

We covered a lot of ground on our girls’ trip to San Sebastián in November of 2017, so I felt I had a good grasp of the place. Switching neighbourhoods, however, can open up whole new horizons on a destination. That was our experience in Antiguo, on the opposite side of the bay from my 2017 base east of the trendy Gros neighbourhood. There were so many new things to explore in this area that I spent more than half of our visit in this less touristy part of town.

We’d spotted three points of interest across the water back in 2017: the beach, a former palace and a mountain top. I wandered around all three. 

Ondaretta Beach has the same golden sands, generous depth from shore to surf and easy shallows for paddling as does the beach closer to the old town. But these western sands are separated from that more touristy beach by a  jagged outcrop of rocks at all but low tide. Guidebooks say this side is always less crowded and more local, and what I saw validated that. We arrived on a warm, sunny Wednesday afternoon and I should have immediately changed into my bathing costume and headed for the beach. I didn't, and the rest of our free time there was blustery with cool winds and rain. So I can confirm that it's a wonderful beach for a long, barefoot stroll along the tide line but I never took a proper swim.

I'd skipped the swim in favour of exploring the gardens at Miramar Palace. Guidebooks warned that the property, now owned by the town, often closed for special events and the San Sebastian film festival was about to start. I suspected, and was proven right, that the place would soon be given over to movie types so I thought I should get in while I could.

Less traditional palace and more 19th century Bavarian hunting lodge (above), Miramar sits on a hill surrounded by parkland on the western curve of the bay. It is a major feature of the view when you're looking out from the old town. It was the summer HQ of Queen Regent Maria Christina, who's the person most responsible for turning San Sebastian from an insignificant fishing village to the fashionable 19th century resort that laid the foundations of today's city. The young Austrian princess came to Spain to marry her much older husband, then ended up running the place from his death in 1886 to her son's accession to the throne in 1902. (Alfonso XII was born six months after his father died.) Doctors had recommended sea bathing for her health, and she liked the idea of raising her son away from the pressures of Madrid, so the family descended upon this then-tiny place and built a summer home. 

Both the house and gardens are supposed to be "in the English style", though if you're from England you'll think they missed that brief. The garden is mostly lawns and trees, with a few flower beds mostly planted with bright annuals. Garden tourism isn't why you come up here, however. It's the views. Whether you go all the way up to the house and settle on comfortable benches taking in the sweep of land and sea, or clamber down to the bottom where a walkway juts out atop those rocks that separate the beaches, this is one of the best places from which to drink in the beauty of San Sebastian. Plenty of tourists were walking through, usually with local guides, but most of the people up here seemed to be locals lounging on the benches or stretched out on blankets on the lawns for a lazy afternoon in the sun. I settled down to a bit of sketching.

Besides Miramar, the other thing that dominates your view when you look west from the old town is Monte Igeldo. San Sebastian's magnificent La Concha bay is defined by hills. The broad, crescent shaped bay ends with pinnacles on each side, while a third sits in the middle of the water between them. This natural breakwater is what makes the beaches behind it so marvellously placid. Of the three waterfront peaks, Igeldo to the west is the highest. 

Developers poured in after the Queen Regent made this place her summer capital, and one of their early investments was the funicular railway up to Igeldo's peak. The experience today is the same you would have had when it opened in 1912: the same gracious station a the bottom, the same wooden cars climbing the hill and the same spectacular observation balconies up top. The €4.25 return ticket may be a bit more, proportionally, than our ancestors laid out, but it's still quite reasonable for an ascent to an impressive view. As a comparison, going to the top of the Eiffel Tower will cost you €28.30, London's Shard £32 and a return trip on the Alpine railway up the Gornergrat around €100. So Igeldo is a bit of a bargain, really.

Which is just as well, as there's nothing much up here besides the views. The historic amusement park much celebrated in local travel literature is a small handful of modest fairground rides. Granted, the amusements were already closed for the season when I walked around and therefore it was all a bit sad, but it was hard to imagine much improvement even with kids queuing up. It's less Copenhagen's Tivoli, more the travelling carnival that might turn up on your village common. There's a Mercure Hotel at the peak which is, sadly, a brutalist concrete bunker at odds with all the gorgeous Fin de siècle architecture below. We were originally going to stay here but it was sold out because of the film festival. Now that I've seen it I'm relieved we were in a livelier part of town. 

A pintxos bar takes pride of place, wrapping around the base of the hotel and taking all the windows and patio space with the best views. The pintxos were the least impressive I had on the trip. They make no effort, simply slapping a few basic ingredients on slices of baguette, but at least they don't jack the prices up to stupid levels because of the view. Settling in with a glass of wine and a few snacks to watch the bay below is definitely the highlight of the ride, even if the pintxos are sub par.

Down below, the Antiguo neighbourhood is a delight to stroll around. It's not touristy at all, rather packed with affluent-looking residents going about their days. The university district starts on its western edge, so there's also a young, lively feel about the place. There are plenty of comfortable bars with big display cases of pintxos, perhaps not as gourmet at the places in the old town but reeking with authenticity. And you're likely to the be only foreigner in the place. There's also a curiously high number of gorgeous bakeries full of tempting products, many using Basque flags to indicate which items, like the famous cheesecake, are regional specialties. Like its culinary doppelgänger Copenhagen, San Sebastian seems to have a way with pastry.

My favourite part of the neighbourhood was about five square blocks directly behind the beach, nestled up against the slope of Monte Igeldo. This was clearly once an area of urban mansions built in the early 20th century so people who mattered could be close to the Queen Regent. While many have been torn down and replaced with modern buildings, there are enough left to reward a walk up and down each street in the neighbourhood. Some have become offices of doctors and lawyers, some luxury hotels and a fair few still residences. The style of each is different. I saw traditional Spanish villas, half-timbered hunting lodges, new-classical townhouses worthy of Paris, art nouveau fantasies and miniature castles in tune with Disney. 

A long, narrow park stands between this area and the beach, dominated by a statue of the regal Maria Christina, who seems to be smugly saying "look, all of this is down to me".

Our favourite restaurant of our time in San Sebastian was just on the edge of this district, where it starts transitioning into offices and university buildings. El Bistro Ondarreta is, I am somewhat ashamed to admit, a French restaurant. I feel like I should eat local when I'm visiting a place, and certainly shouldn't prefer a foreign restaurant to the native cuisine. 

Blame chef Carlos, the instructor at our Basque cooking class, who said this was the best restaurant he knew near our hotel.  He was right. 

The chef patron hails from Cannes, cooked at several big names in San Sebastian and then opened this cozy place with only about 10 tables and room to eat at the bar. No fusion here, we are unapologetically back in France ... though heavily the French Mediterranean, so it's not that far from Spain. I had an absolutely perfect lobster spaghetti while my husband almost wept with joy at the pork tomahawk steak. While the Spanish are obsessed by pork, he'd hit a run of overcooked examples throughout the whole trip. Here, on the last night, in a French restaurant, was the dish that finally gave the pig the love it deserved. The lime tart was a light, tangy finisher.

We stayed at Letoh Letoh, a hotel with modern, industrial chic design inside a turn of the 20th century building. The location just a few hundred yards off the beach is excellent and there’s a spacious, modern car park about 10 minutes’ walk down the same road with discounted parking. The bed was comfortable, the room air conditioning powerful and the Juliet balcony gave us a pleasant view over the street below, but I wasn’t thrilled with the lack of public spaces. Instead of lobbies or lounges, the check in desk stands between a coffee bar and a pintxos bar and restaurant. Both were clearly popular with the locals. On our rainy day, when we didn’t feel like going out, we had to decide between the room with one not particularly comfortable chair or the very noisy bars. 

I really enjoyed this side of town, and would definitely choose it again. But I’d check out some of those intriguing boutique hotels in the streets with the historic mansions before I repeated a Letoh Letoh booking.

Kookin Donosti shows off Basque culture through the kitchen

There are lots of lovely things to see and do in San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque), but let’s be honest. This place is all about the food. It has the highest concentration of Michelin stars per head of population in Europe. Even if you’re not eating at any of those revered institutions, the commitment to fine food cascades down. In many bars the once-humble pintxo, originally just a snack on a skewer or tasty bits on a piece of bread, has become a miniature masterpiece. People come here from all over the world to learn to cook. Everyone is obsessed by food. The only place in Europe with a similar culinary vibe is Copenhagen.

So it’s no surprise that I’ve been wanting to bring my half-Danish, fully epicurean husband to this culinary capital since my first look at a proper array of pintxos. The exquisite care taken with these small plates was a direct equivalent to Danish Smørrebrød. I knew he’d be a fan.

We did, indeed, have great fun following a trail of pintxo bars through the old town, hitting several favourites from my last trip. But our best culinary experience was a day at cooking school.

We find that there are few things better for getting a proper local understanding of a place than learning about its cuisine. Not just eating it, but shopping for it, getting your hands on the raw ingredients, and actively preparing it with someone who has a deep understanding of the intersection between food and people. Kookin Donosti, and chef Carlos Hurtado, are proof points validating the theory. We’ve taken a lot of cooking courses in our travels, and this was definitely one of the best.

We started with a tour of the market. This is a place in transition and will soon be a much better experience. As its economy shifted away from fishing, San Sebastián let its local market wither, allowing the grand old market building to stand empty while a reduced collection of market stalls moved to an uninspiring  basement next door. Barcelona’s Boqueria it is not. But a renovation of the old market building is under way, with plans to move the existing vendors and bring in more food-related diversions, bringing San Sebastián on par with famous markets like the Boqueria, Torvehallerne in Copenhagen or Borough in London. Until then, the stalls here are more than sufficient to meet Carlos’ teaching needs.

First came a vendor of nothing but salted cod, a staple of Iberian cuisine and a driver of European economies for centuries. There’s an enormous variety of options here, and we learned about different levels of quality, and re-hydration techniques, as Carlos bought what we were going to need for our first course. Moving on to a fresh fish stall to buy the hake for course two, we had a long conversation about what fish was local, what came in from elsewhere, and how to judge quality of different species. He’d already procured the beef for course three, but we paused in front of a butcher’s stall to talk all things pig and cow.

Then it was off for a 10 minute stroll to the kitchen classroom, one of the best-equipped we’ve experienced. It was obviously purpose built, with plenty of room for individual workstations and good quality pots and hobs. Though knives were just Ikea basics, they’d been carefully maintained and had an excellent edge. We retired to a table a few feet from the demonstration area to eat each course together with other students; just four in total for our session on Basque classics. I loved the alternating back and forth between cooking and eating. At other classes we’ve cooked everything and sat down at the end for multiple courses at once. This set up seemed much more entertaining and built the appetite for each new dish, while Carlos cleaned our cooking areas as we ate. (Cooking while someone else cleans up for me is almost worth the price of admission.) The close proximity of the dining table means we could also watch demonstrations as we ate and drank. Admittedly, we did less cooking and more watching as the day progressed and the drinks poured, with Carlos doing all the work for the pudding but the orange peels we'd prepped earlier. 

Our Basque menu started by using the re-hydrated salt cod in a tortilla with onions and green peppers. I wouldn’t have thought of fish in an omelette, but this was fantastic. Carlos demonstrated the classic Spanish flipping technique (using a plate to take the omelette completely out of the pan and put the wet side back on the bottom), but the best tip here was simply making sure the pan is piping hot before the eggs go in, then turning down the heat. 

Next came hake in a green sauce. Lesson: it’s really not that time consuming to make a sauce that transforms your dish. (Though stripping the leaves off the parsley stems is a bit fiddly.) And that a handful of steamed clams scattered atop a fish dish can elevate it to the next level. IF you can find fat and juicy fresh clams, of course. Few of us have a fish market like San Sebastián’s at hand, even in its currently humble state. 

The main course was a simple but magnificent ribeye (above, with chef Carlos), a testament to the beauty of great ingredients cooked well. We were familiar with all be basics of cooking beef but it’s good to get some key reminders. Let your meat sit out for a minimum of two hours to come up to room temperature. Render that fat to imbue flavour. Don’t salt ‘til it’s done. A single, large piece, cooked and shared, is easier to keep moist and succulent than individual steaks. This course also gave me a fresh appreciation for piquillo peppers. They ARE different, and worth finding and buying in their jars, for a perfect accompaniment to beef. 

The most revelatory course for me, however, was dessert. Every European culture has recipes to use up stale bread. Here, hunks of stale brioche … hard to go wrong when starting with that … are caramelised in sugar then soaked in a combination of milk and cream that’s been infused with orange skins and cinnamon. I was blown away by how much flavour the liquid took on, and how such simple ingredients combined into an elegant whole. This one is going straight on the dinner party roster. (Though finding whole loaves of un-sliced brioche may prove challenging.)

All that great food was complemented by Carlos’ commentary, and by matching drinks for each course. Basque cider made its second appearance on our trip, and this time we got to try the elongated pouring technique ourselves. I’m still not a fan. 

Once again, we found that the company of our fellow students was part of the appeal. People enthusiastic enough about local cuisine to spend half a day getting their hands on it tend to be great company. 

Kookin Donosti would be the first thing I’d book on a return trip to San Sebastián. They do a pintxos class that’s calling my name. In fact, this is a town that’s screaming out for something like the week-long residential class we did in Gascony. Kookin is still a young company. If they expanded in that direction, it would be on our bucket list. 

Well off the tourist track, the Basque Country's capital is worth seeking out

Most tourists will know Spain’s Basque Country for the foodie paradise that is San Sebastián or for the Frank Gehry-designed museum in Bilbao. They might have driven between them and marvelled at the dramatic, dark green Alpine landscape that runs along the coast. But that’s only part of the picture. The Basque Country’s capital of Vitoria-Gasteiz (Vitoria is the Spanish name, Gasteiz the Basque) is a gracious mix of architecture through the ages, networked through its heart with miles of tree-lined avenues and sitting at the centre of an enormous, fertile plain ringed entirely by mountains. It feels a bit like a Spanish version of Shangri-La: happy, prosperous and a mystery to the outside world. 

This is, of course, an illusion. The thriving manufacturing base in the valley and the excellent transport systems heading in and out link Vitoria-Gasteiz to the economic central nervous system of Europe. But as a tourist destination, it’s not often considered. It probably should be, even if you’re not … as we were … coming here to check out the site of the Battle of Vitoria. 

I offer three reasons for a visit: a fascinating town centre, gourmet pintxos, and a Parador hotel in a Renaissance palace with extraordinary views.

THE TOWN CENTRE

This deserved at least a full day, not the rushed couple of hours we had to spare. The tree-lined avenues I mentioned above are the most unique feature of town. I've never seen so many, and ones so long. They're a bit like Las Ramblas in Barcelona but there are multiple pathways intersecting each other, with far less commercial clutter inside of them and much bigger trees. These, combined with leafy squares and verdant 19th century parks like La Florida, make the city feel unusually green. No surprise that it was named the European Green Capital for 2012.

The central point in town is the Virgen Blanca square, pictured top, where the monument to the Battle of Vitoria stands along with the ubiquitous oversized city name provided for your "I am here" Instagram shot. More interesting, perhaps, is that from here you can see that there are distinct upper and lower towns, the original being the higher one still packed with medieval buildings. Architects over the centuries have been clever integrating the two levels, incorporating arcades, loggias and grand staircases into the urban landscape. For a more modern approach, there's an outdoor escalator that allows you to ride the equivalent of about six stories. The upper town boasts a castle, several gorgeous Renaissance palaces, lots of intriguing shops and restaurants and a lovely park where modern art and architecture combines with ruins to show off where the wall once was. 

Any Spanish town worth visiting has abundant churches, and there are many here showing off architecture from Gothic to Baroque, church towers glorifying the skyline. There are more grand open spaces, most impressive being the Plaza Nueva. Like so many of these Spanish squares, this one once hosted bullfights, is full of grand apartments and houses the town hall. It also features the tourist office and a line of stone benches that go all the way around its perimeter. Nearby is the most gorgeous post office I've ever seen, a fantastic Basque palace where you insert your post into the mouths of gleaming brass lions.

Unsurprisingly for a regional capital, Vitoria-Gasteiz is loaded with museums. I would have liked time to check out the Basque view of the world in the art museum, housed in a spectacular palace. Quirkier and perhaps more interesting would have been the playing card museum. The local Fournier family invented a particular process for coating cards that made them last longer; to this day the company is a preferred provider to the world's casinos. One of the family heirs, however, directed his interest towards collecting arms and armour, which he later donated to the city. It's a small collection but of spectacularly high quality, with medieval and renaissance examples on the ground floor and a big section on the battle of Vitoria, plus a few excellent Japanese suits of armour, upstairs. Unusually for museums on the continent, it's free.

PINTXOS AT PERRETXICO

Pintxos are the Basque take on tapas, elevated to a gourmet extreme. While San Sebastian is famous for them ... indeed, they form the centre of many a foodie holiday there ... the tastiest and most sophisticated I've had were in Vitoria. Discovering this was thanks to a local guide, who took us to the place where he was a regular, PerretxiCo, and suggested a variety. There's little tourism here so the menus are not in English. Without a guide, be ready with translator apps or go for the chef's menu of pintxos. Six varieties plus bread and a dessert pintxo for €29.90 is a bargain. 

We were lucky to have a local order for us. PerretxiCo elevates the simple to new heights. A gilda, a skewer of olives, peppers and anchovies considered one of the original pintxos, was a thing of perfect balance. If you think you don't like anchovies, or olives, this magic combination overwhelms their original tastes with something new. Savoury and sweet. Sharp and smooth. Croquetas are on offer at every bar in Spain, but here their insides are a mousse of mussels. I hate mussels. I loved these. Russian salad is inexplicably a constant across the Basque country; this one is a dreamy mouthful of delight that came in the Top 10 of Spain's National Salad Competition. (Yes, they have one.)

You don't come here for simple, however. This is the place for award-winning pintxos that get noticed by serious chefs. Case in point: it looks like a donut and a cup of tea, but it's Basque stew magically piped into a donut case, served with a cup of beefy broth. Once again, it's savoury and sweet, this time the look as well as the taste playing wildly with your expectations. It was single most memorable dish of the whole trip. Fried artichokes with truffled mayonnaise and local pork fashioned into crisp bacon garnish was a winner. Another pintxo comes with a syringe you use to inject extra meat flavour into your savoury morsel. Foie gras comes as a mousse, on top of a bed of zingy yogurt, topped with crunchy bits of nougat. Even though the core ingredient is liver, our guide suggested it as dessert ... and it worked.

Lunch here also featured our introduction to Basque cider. It's flatter, dryer and yeastier than English varieties. I wasn't a fan, though maybe it's an acquired taste. It does come with an elaborate pouring ritual that's quite entertaining, from on high into a glass below to aerate the liquid and activate flavours. 

PerretxiCo is the brainchild of award-winning Basque chef Josean Merino. He and the restaurant hold a remarkable portfolio of awards. Yet you'd never guess it from the humble shopfront and the cheerful, streamlined cafe vibe. It looked like we were going into a mid-market chain restaurant, yet the food felt worthy of the Michelin guide. (And, indeed, they've had a mention.) If you can't get to Vitoria, Merino has expanded his concept to seven other locations, including five in Madrid. If he comes to London I'd camp out to get one of his first tables.

PARADOR DE ARGOMANIZ

In the 1920s, the Spanish government hit on the idea of establishing hotels with accompanying restaurants in disused historic buildings to bring tourism into under-visited areas, show off local food and preserve historic architecture. I've always wanted to stay in one, but it's taken me years to get there. The Parador de Argomaniz delivered on my expectations and was astonishingly good value for money, delivering dinner, bed and breakfast in truly luxurious surroundings for around €100 per person per night. (We stayed on a Monday and Tuesday. Prices nearly doubled for Friday and Saturday.)

At the heart of this Parador is a Renaissance palace, expanded with two modern but sensitively-designed wings for the rooms. The location is magnificent, nestled half way up the slope of the eastern edge of the ring of mountains that isolates the plain of Alava from the rest of the world. The views are jaw-dropping, taking in the entire plain with the city of Vitoria below and gorgeous sunsets over the opposing mountains. Make sure you ask for a west-facing room. Ours featured a large bay window with comfortable chairs to drink it all in. Plus an enormous bed, a commodious bathtub and beautiful design all around. 

For a more communal sunset experience, head down to the garden outside what was originally the entrance front of the palace, where bartenders free-pour generous amounts of gin into goblets to accompany your tonic. 

Most of the ground floor of the old palace is a comfortable bar; you have to climb up to the attics for the restaurant. This may seem a bit downmarket, but by converting the attic rooms into a single, enormous hall under the restored 18th century roof beams the designers have created a majestic space.

We had excellent meals both nights, accompanied by local wines and after dinner drinks. Worth noting, of course, that drinks are not part of the dinner B&B package and there are some supplemental charges for the fancier dishes on the menu, so we ended up adding €140 to our 2-night bill. Standouts over the two nights included a mushroom souffle served as a starter and an excellent pork dish done with a sweet and tart fruit sauce. Breakfasts featured a large cold buffet. It's supplemented by cooked dishes on demand if you're still hungry after that traditionally late Spanish dinner. The earliest evening dining time in the restaurant is 8:30. 

My only disappointment with the Parador de Agromaniz was the lack of a pool or spa. Such luxurious environs usually have them. But the activity here seems to be more about riding, whether on bicycles or horses. Cyclists love the miles of flatlands in the valley below and the wooded paths through the mountain foothills, while we ran into an equestrian tourist group from England on a cross-country horseback excursion, using this as one of their overnight points. 

I'm not sure I'd come to the area just for the parador, but it definitely adds to this lovely city's appeal as a destination. Sadly, there are no direct flights from London to the airport here, so you're most likely to consider it as an add-on to a trip flying in and out of Bilbao, about an hour away by car.

Miraculous Miraflores monastery is my star sight in Northern Spain

Sometimes, the most spectacular sights are not the “must sees” trumpeted in the guidebooks. The Carthusian Monastery, or Charterhouse, of our Lady of Miraflores is a case in point. It merits only a small aside in descriptions of nearby Burgos, was almost empty of other visitors while we were there and I can’t remember ever seeing it mentioned in art history or architectural surveys of Spain. Yet its royal tombs, vivid altar and fascinating choir screen make it one of the most achingly beautiful places I’ve ever visited in Spain. Its emotional impact is heightened by the silence of the site and the feeling that you’re uncovering the undiscovered. 

It is similar to, but in my opinion much better than, the burial chamber of the Catholic Monarchs in Granada, which you’ll wait in a queue to get into, pay for, and explore shoulder to shoulder with other tourists, watched closely by guides who won’t let you take photos. There’s a reason for the artistic similarity. The tombs at Miraflores celebrate the parents and brother of the great Queen Isabella, who lies in that monument in Grenada and who closely oversaw the design and construction at Burgos. But while the magnificence of Isabella’s burial place is a bit over the top, and the altar features far too many scenes of gruesome martyrdom for me to love it, her parents rest in a stillness and gentleness that offers heaven without quite so much suffering.

I stumbled on Miraflores’ miraculous little piece of heaven while searching for a place to break our journey between Salamanca and Vitoria. It’s only a three and a half hour drive, so a stop wasn’t strictly necessary. But it seemed a shame to be driving through the heart of the ancient kingdom of Castile and León without stopping to see any of its treasures. It was also my day to set the agenda between two full days of battlefield tourism (read about that here), so I was looking for some balancing art history. Valladolid, Palencia and Burgos were all highly-praised spots along the route, but they were also bustling towns. I was looking for something quieter. And, after our perilous adventures in the world’s most constricted multi-story garage in Salamanca, someplace that offered stress-free parking. A little monastery on the outskirts of a town fit the brief.

Miraflores is still a working monastery of the Carthusians, and as such is known as a Cartuja in Spanish or Charterhouse in English. (The English school of that name was founded in a repurposed Carthusian monastery.) Charterhouses are always a good bet for serenity. Members of the order are essentially communal hermits, spending most of their day in isolated prayer in and having little to do with the general public, coming together only to eat and group services. 

Their distinctive, hooded, pure-white robes give them a ghost-like character, if you’re ever lucky enough to see one. The fathers here stay on their side of the enclosure. Two lay employees were on hand to keep an eye on things, work an admissions desk and oversee the small shop next to it. The monks are present, however, in the guidebook you’re given on entry. “As it’s not possible for us to accompany you personally, we have put a special interest in preparing this booklet for you,” they write. There’s a personal touch across the copy as the author speaks as “we” and gives you insight into their home and the features about which they are most proud. And the things you can buy reproductions of in the gift shop. A life of quiet contemplation still needs funding.

Visitors approach up a wooded road that emerges into a clearing with a cross in a grassy circle and the church complex behind it, all behind a pale stone wall. Everything is pristine and tidy, “on brand” for the men in their spotless robes. You cross through a large gatehouse before coming into a cloister which, unusually, sits in front of the church. Entry is free but donations are encouraged. Or you can splash out on products produced by the monks. In line with their charterhouse’s floral name, they’ve created a scent that wafts through the church. You can buy candles impregnated with it, or bottles of scented oil, amongst other items produced by the order. That includes bottles of Chartreuse, the distinctive green liqueur made by a more famous French branch of Carthusians. 

There are seats in the cloister courtyard, and Gregorian chant piped gently through a sound system, to give you a chance to contemplate the decorative details of the church front. There are royal crests, a pieta and lots of carved foliage writhing over gothic points and pinnacles, but the majority of the surfaces are plain, white stone. You enter through a sober entry porch and atrium, both so austere you could almost start to wonder if you’re really in Spain. A portrait of St. Bruno, founder of the order, with the ghostly white skin, elongated form, and dark and brooding mood so typical of Spanish art is there to reassure you. We paused briefly to say our apologies for making such a spoiled dog his namesake. Then it was on to the main event.

The body of the church itself starts with the vestibule of the faithful, the only part where the un-ordained would have been allowed to go in the past. This isn’t a bad spot. There are lovely stained glass windows above you and some nice art on the walls, but the dominant feature is the wrought iron screen that separates you from the rest of the church. Through it you can clearly make out … but not get close to … all the magnificent art. If you liked nice things, it was a clear incentive to take holy orders and cross to the other side of the fence.

Moving on to the lay brothers’ choir, the decorative detail instantly ratchets up several levels. There are delicately carved wooden choir stalls writhing with lush leaves and flowers. Two altars form the bulk of a dividing screen from the next part of the church, each centred on a triptych of beautiful paintings and clothed in gold leaf. The screen, with its pedimented doorway between the altars, is topped by wooden figures of the Virgin Mary and dancing angels. The original paintwork is still bright,  showing off jolly patterns and the merry swing of their dress fabric. Despite the solemn atmosphere, the decorative scheme conspires to make this a happy place.

Those dancing angles are welcoming you into the holy of holies, the fathers’ choir. Here are more wooden stalls, equally lavish in their carving, but you don’t notice. Because the main altar looms above you, a wonder of three-dimensional carved, painted, and gilded scenes surrounding a crucifix encircled by a line of angels. And in front of that, the extraordinary tombs of Juan II and Isabel of Portugal. Carved in alabaster, the two are so lifelike you’d swear they got up for a ramble around the church when your back is turned. They lie on a high plinth that’s essentially a miniature gothic building, figures carved in lavish detail sitting in alcoves reminiscent of the nearby choir stalls. 

If that’s not enough visual stimulation, Prince Alfonso rests to one side in an equally gorgeous masterpiece of carved alabaster, though instead of sleeping he’s shown on his knees in perpetual prayer to the high altar.

You could spend hours here reading the tombs and the altarpiece like a comic book. Each polychromed scene or carved figure has a story to tell. Each small part is a masterpiece of craftsmanship, although the altarpiece is so busy and so heavy on the gilt that you can lose focus if you look at the whole thing rather than concentrating on individual bits.

I was entranced long after my husband had drifted on, gamely content to read a book out in the cloister while I continued in my sculptural raptures. Later he asked me why I loved Miraflores so much when I’d had such a negative reaction the day before to the overzealous decoration in the New Cathedral of Salamanca. I think it’s because the decorative abundance in Miraflores exists in a quieter space. The church building itself is almost austere. And the tombs, extravagant as their carvings might be, are pure white, thus stripping out a layer of distraction.

I would have been content if that was all there was to see, but you also get to check out a sacristy packed with reliquaries and three side chapels turned into museum spaces. The largest offers more history about the charterhouse and offers up some recently-restored artworks for closer inspection. Another is a spectacularly-frescoed room from the baroque period that’s recently been restored. The third serves as a treasury, showing off some of the church’s finest accessories, and tells the story of some of the artwork lost to Miraflores in harder times. Including one piece knocked off the tomb and sold to the Met’s Cloisters museum in New York. (A modern copy seamlessly sits within the tomb now.) While the complex feels like the most peaceful and prosperous place in the world, and everything seems in perfect condition, the Cartuja went through difficult times along with Spain, surviving war, pillage and threats to religious orders. Its current form sends a message of optimism: have faith, and all will be well.

If you plan to visit, do check the hours on the website as they typically close for lunch from 3-4. There are also no tourist services up here beyond a toilet. The fathers may be happy to sell you a rosary or scented oil, but encouraging people to stay for food and drink would break the contemplative atmosphere of this special place. 

To make the most of a battlefield, find a great storyteller (Touring Salamanca and Vitoria)

If you marry a soldier with a passion for military history, you accept the fact that holidays may include battlefield tours. Our spectacular cross-country Spanish road trip was not born of a desire to experience the variety of the country's interior. We did it because a certain Arthur Wellesley once criss-crossed this landscape fighting the Peninsular Wars on the way to becoming Duke of Wellington and beating Napoleon at Waterloo.

Battlefield tourism isn't nearly as trying for the trailing spouse as you might imagine. The places that once hosted horrific slaughter have a strange tendency to evolve into beautiful, and profoundly peaceful, spots. If you're lucky enough to have a great storyteller to show you around, battlefields are the setting for thrilling tales of conflict, heroism, triumph and tragedy, played out with intense human emotion.

The quality of your experience will vary with the storytelling abilities of your guide. My grasp, and appreciation, of the Battle of Salamanca is now profound thanks to Raúl Bellido. Should you ever be interested enough to spend four hours climbing hills and rambling through an enormous valley due south of the Spanish university town, he’s your man. We had less luck with our guide in Vitoria, who was great on the overall area but clearly not a specialist on military history and the nuances of that particular battle.

What made Raúl so special? He started with a context-setting explanation of the politics of the time and what factors led up to the conflict on the 22nd of July, 1812. He took us to the critical points on the battlefield in order, giving us a timeframe at each spot so we were always conscious of where and when we were in the unfurling story. He had the keys to the small battlefield museum in Arapiles (the village that the Spaniards use to name the battle.) Raúl works here as a volunteer so brought us in for a private visit when everything was locked up tight. Checking out the dioramas, uniforms and other collections here at the mid-way point was a great way to consolidate what we'd learned thus far, and was also a brilliantly-planned bathroom break in a day otherwise spent in the open air.


We ended our tour with a moderately-challenging hike up to the top of the highest point of the action, the Grand Arapile, where there’s a monument and an incredible view.

Raúl ended the story with a vivid description of the final hours of the conflict, brought to life by the difficult terrain. My husband believes the landscape is the real point of a battlefield tour: maps, and even videos, don't give you the true picture of how hills, valleys and rivers factor into the action. At Salamanca it's obvious, especially when you're driving from one key point to another and see the way whole parts of the landscape disappear from certain vantage points. Wellington used the hills as camouflage in a giant game of hide and seek to gain his victory.

On the magnificent hilltop, Raúl finished with a true storyteller's flare, outlining the denouement before giving us a summary and his argument for why this was one of the most significant battles in European history. (The tipping point in the power struggle that led to Waterloo and the post-Napoleonic world.)


While you could do this trail on your own, downloading a map and driving to key points on the battlefield, it would be a lot harder without a guide. The roads up to the key spots with information points were generally farm tracks with little signage. There's no clear guidance on the museum's web site of when it's open. We never would have found, or even thought to look for, the wonderful battle murals and monument to the Duke of Wellington in Arapiles village.


What you could do without a guide is simply enjoy the fabulous landscape. The enormous valley ringed with hills is all protected as a historic site, and though roads go through it the traffic is light. There are lots of cyclists and hikers here simply enjoying the great outdoors. Packing a picnic and hiking up either of the Arapile hills, or going to the more easily accessible viewpoint at the little stone church called the Ermita de Nuestra Señora de la Peña, would make for a pleasant day out.


The battlefield at Vitoria is much harder to wrap your head around, with our without a guide. If Salamanca was Wellington's tipping point, Vitoria 11 months later was where he wrapped things up and delivered the death blow that pushed the French out of Spain. But the scale here is vast. The valley in Salamanca is perhaps 5 miles across, and has been kept completely pastoral. Vitoria ranged across the vast plan of Álava, encompassing more than 1000 square miles including armies climbing up and over mountain passes to get to the battle. Key points at Salamanca were perhaps 5 minutes apart by car. At Vitoria they were more than 20. Vitoria was more of a series of conflicts happening in the same general area across a day, culminating in the city itself, rather than just one storyline. It would be hard to get a a continuous narrative across even if you were a brilliant storyteller with flawless English and a military historian’s obsession with the battle. Sadly, our guide here wasn’t quite up to any of those, though he made a valiant effort. (He was much better when it came to showing us around the city itself, which I’ll cover in a later article.)

Without the context and the story, my attention was drifting as we spent the morning driving between a series of very attractive bridges. The story of the day seemed to be about various skirmishes to get across them, but I lost interest and just appreciated the scenery.


There was a hill to climb up, but the viewpoint it offers is less clear and the vistas are more of highways and industrial estates than of romantically rolling grassland. (The battle might not have left much of an impression on me, but the tidy industrial prosperity of the Álava plain had a big impact, brimming with modern factories and industrial complexes from which delivery vehicles glide to and fro on impressive highways. This is the capital of the Basque Country, the most prosperous region in Spain, and it’s obvious.)

Things started to make more sense in Vitoria itself, where the upper floor of the Álava Armory Museum is almost entirely dedicated to the battle. Here there are several dioramas, including a huge one that shows the whole valley as it was in 1813, with buttons you can hit to trigger lights that show you who went where, when. There’s no English signage but the Google translate app that works from photos of text does a good job. A ten minute’s stroll away, on the main town square, you’ll find a striking monument to the battle.

Ironically, the monument for the 1813 conflict wasn’t installed and dedicated until 1917. The centenary of the battle sparked a local realisation that they really should do something to mark what had become the most famous event in their history. The result, therefore, is far more exuberant and cluttered than anything that might have gone up immediately after the event. It ascends in four busy tiers. First, a level of life-sized stone sculptures showing the impact of the battle and its aftermath on the locals. Then a level of bronze sculptures … which also looked life-sized but may have been even bigger … involved in the conflict with Wellington astride his horse at the centre. Then comes a quiet bit; a stubby obelisk naming the battle. Then we’re back to bronze, with a massive allegorical figure of victory waving a flag while the British Lion at her feet prepares to eviscerate the prostrate, screaming French eagle in his paws. The artists involved clearly felt far enough away from the reality of the battle to take plenty of license. Wellington’s profile lacks his distinctive hooked nose and is more heroically handsome than his portraits, while my husband had fun picking out all sorts of issues with uniforms and military detail. But it you’re not bothered by those things, it’s a visually striking memorial set in a beautiful environment.

My husband found both days worth his time, but I could have happily skipped the battlefield parts of Vitoria and spent more time in the city centre. And even after being on site, my favourite Battle of Vitoria-related experience will remain visiting Apsely House in London, where artistic treasures from the abandoned French baggage train are displayed. (Not war booty but a gift to Wellington from a grateful Spanish king for his restoration.). While my husband wouldn’t have given up his trek around the plain of Álava, he too agreed that the day with Raúl was better by far. Storytelling wins this battle.

Salamanca's world heritage heart is a feast for the senses

University towns tend to be attractive places. The older the institution, the more true that stereotype is likely to be. Salamanca, educating Spaniards since 1218, is a case in point. 

Like most Spanish cities, it's surrounded by a sprawl of modern development, but city planners have

somehow kept this both attractive and low-rise enough to let the towers of the old town dominate the scene as you approach. That domination is helped by the town's unusual double cathedral: having built a new one next to the old, citizens decided not to tear down the original but instead to use it as a sort of grand side chapel. Towers of university buildings, convents and monasteries add to a skyline that can be made out from miles away, while the curve of the river and a preserved Roman bridge form a protective buffer from development.  It's no surprise to discover that the whole town centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We were only here for two nights, but there are clearly delights in Salamanca to engage people for a longer visit. My friends who studied in Spain headed to Seville or Barcelona; I'd be tempted by Salamanca. The thriving social scene we witnessed on Saturday night certainly supported that idea, though it was all quite civilised. I sensed no "town v gown" conflicts as grown ups and families mixed in the same spaces with students. Your intrepid reporter was in bed by 11:30, however, so I can't attest to what develops in the wee hours. 

With limited time, we headed for the Plaza Mayor as soon as we hit town. Most major Spanish cities have a significant central square like this, with a town hall on one side, surrounded by colonnades and overlooked by balconies of residential properties. Many, including this one, were used as bull rings with spectators looking down from all those balconies. Salamanca's however, is considered one of the best in the country. It's enormous, and crowded with shops, restaurants and bars. It's made for settling down at a table, ordering a drink and watching the world go by. The baroque architecture gives it a festive, almost frivolous feel, with pinnacles breaking the rooflines, bas relief portrait busts of royals and significant historical figures decorating the space between arches on the ground level, and a froth of decoration covering the main buildings on opposing sides of the square. It's a bit like sitting inside a wedding cake.

With more time, I would have liked to explore the Convento de las Dueñas, take a tour of the university buildings, check out the substantial covered market, and dive into the museum of Art Nouveau and Deco. But a limited visit demanded prioritisation, and my choice had to be that strange double cathedral.

The newer building, where your visit begins, is one of the biggest cathedrals in Spain and a real hotch-potch of architectural styles. Built over more than 200 years, it ranges from gothic through baroque with combinations and excess that will amaze you, even if you fall a bit short on delight. The phrase "less is more" tripped though my brain more than once as my eyes fought to focus. There's such an abundance of gold leaf that it's often hard to make out what it's glorifying, as in the altar to St. Anthony of Padua. It amused me to remember that he's the patron saint of the poor, and his statue ... usually a humble one of painted wood ... traditionally stands atop a donation box inviting contributions to help the impoverished of the parish. Poverty and humility are not concepts that come to mind here. 

In other places, like the ornamented ribs of the vault behind the main altar or the stone surrounds of the organs, the decoration is so thick it reminds you of the way sea life encrusts and obscures artefacts lying under water for centuries. There's one chapel so crowded with votive figures it's almost comic. 

The central choir is to my eyes the most beautiful part of the building, probably because ... though ornate ... it's mostly wood and one colour, so easier to digest. 

The levels of decorative detail actually make the cathedral difficult to photograph; everything flattens out and you can't appreciate the layers of decoration.

Despite my discomfort with some of the excess, I won't deny that it's a magnificent building. The trick to appreciating it, I think, is to pick out just one bit at a time and then drink in its details. Looking at small sections allows the beauty and craftsmanship to unfurl in a way the big picture obscures. 

I enjoyed the old cathedral more, which is down a steep flight of steps at the back of the new building. The original church is a fraction of the size of its replacement and an austere romanesque space with just hints of the pointier, more frivolous gothic to come. Most of the walls are unadorned white stone, though there's a series of interesting wall paintings on one side. The quiet simplicity allows the carving of medieval craftsmen to stand out around the tops of pillars and the bottoms of vault ribs. The main altarpiece here is, like so much in the new building, a detail-laden menagerie of individual stories swimming in a sea of gold gilt. But the relative simplicity of the rest of the building allows it to shine in a way it wouldn't next door.

There are some painted tombs in alcoves to the right of the altar that were my star sights in the whole complex. The colours are remarkably fresh and the figures wonderfully lifelike, as if they've just laid down for a nap rather than heading to their eternal rest more than 500 years ago. Across from them you'll find a wall of unusually well-preserved medieval frescos. This is the kind of stuff that revolutions destroyed in France and the UK, while fashion wiped it out in Italy. It's beautiful to see here.

And you're not done yet. There's a stately cloister beyond, lined with beautiful chapels featuring more painted tombs and striking altar pieces. While I respect the ambition of the city leaders who felt they needed a grander cathedral, their greatest contribution to Salamanca may have actually been to preserve the original buildings beside their "improvements".

Despite its international reputation and world heritage status, most of the tourists around us in Salamanca seemed to be Spanish speakers. If you're heading this way, it's good idea to polish up your basic tourism and meal ordering phrases. Even the barkeeps in the Irish pubs, where we went hoping to catch some of the Rugby World Cup, didn't have much English. And their television-screens were staying on a Spaniard-pleasing combo of football and tennis. We defaulted to streaming over a VPN and a picnic dinner in our room to watch England beat Japan on our second night.

We did treat ourselves to a proper restaurant meal on our first night, however, after our lingering happy hour in the Plaza Mayor. Casa Paca served up the best beef solomillo (tenderloin) of the trip. And we tried a lot of this famous dish. Having driven through hours of grazing lands full of cattle, it seemed criminal not to. The waiter's recommendation of a local red wine served up one of the best bottles of our the trip at a relatively moderate price. The greatest discovery here was, however, leche frita. The literal translation is fried milk, but it's really closer to a firm custard, coated in a sweet batter and deep fried before being served with ice cream. If you are a fan of custard donuts, this is like the best one you've ever had, kicked up several culinary levels. I am not sure how I've made it through so many trips to Spain without trying what's now become my favourite dessert. Probably a good thing I've never seen it on a menu in the UK, as I suspect it equates to about a week of Weight Watchers points. Casa Paca was one of the best meals of our trip and is as worth prioritising in Salamanca as the cathedrals are.

We stayed at the Ibis: functional, reasonably priced and within easy walking distance of the Plaza Mayor and the cathedrals. I'm sure there are more charming boutique hotels in the historic centre, but I suspect charm might come at the expense of a good night's sleep given the noise generated by thousands of university students enjoying the nightlife within those picturesque, cobbled streets. And if you're driving, the Ibis is easy to reach as it's just off the ring road that separates old town from new. It also has a car park, which is a rare and wonderful advantage for an urban hotel ... but may add a good deal of stress to your trip. It's small. 

The turns to get down the ramps were so tight you could only inch your way forward, while fitting into a parking space took multiple rocking manoeuvres. We both lost a night's sleep with the anxiety of how we were going to liberate our car from three precarious levels below ground. Thankfully, a late departure meant others had cleared out before us and it turned out that getting up the ramps was slightly easier than getting down. Nervous drivers should either make sure they have a small car, or park elsewhere. But don't let that put you off visiting this fabulous city.

Dramatic Valle de Cuelgamuros is a unique place to break a cross-country Spanish drive

I've been to Spain many times, but always to a single location. The glory of this trip was a cross-country drive that took us from the hot, dry hills of the Mediterranean coast to the verdant Alpine valleys of the Basque Country's Atlantic-facing shoreline. In between was more than 800 miles of diverse landscape. 

Most of our drive was heavy on  agriculture and light on people. Spain is twice the size of the United Kingdom with less than half its population. The ten and a half hours we spent road tripping across our second week took us through majestic but desolate mountains, rolling agriculture plains, well-stocked cattle country and expansive olive groves. Had we been travelling a few weeks earlier we would have seen miles of bright yellow sunflowers turning their heads to the light. Now they're drying on their stems in advance of being harvested for their oil. It's a crop that, according to one of our local guides, has exploded in popularity this year in an attempt to capture the market opportunity left by the war in the Ukraine.  All of our driving took place on beautifully maintained but lightly trafficked highways. If not for the mountains on the distant horizon, or the occasional village dominated by a church that seemed too grandiose for its population, the trek through the vast farm fields between Madrid and Salamanca could be mistaken for Interstate 55 through central Illinois.

In the 360 miles between Valencia and Salamanca, only Madrid imposes any sense of population or modernity. It does that with force. Suburbs sprawl for miles. Modern malls loom. Apartment blocks tower. Its network of tunnels is efficient but can perplex: it took the on board sat nav and two of us concentrating hard not to take a wrong turn as we attempted to circumnavigate rather than enter the capital. Not for the first time, we wondered why our European neighbours seem to be so much better than us at infrastructure. I suspect the motorway through the the city is hellishly crowded at rush hour, but our journey early on a Saturday afternoon was easy.

If you happen to be making a cross-country drive and need a place to stretch your legs, or if you're in Madrid and hunger for a change of scene, the Valley of the Fallen (Valle de Cuelgamuros) is an intriguing choice. 

The mountaintop cross with an enormous basilica burrowed into the granite below is also spectacularly controversial. Though Spain's Fascist dictator said it was a national memorial of atonement and reconciliation, sketchy records suggest that there are far more of Franco's side buried here than his opposition. Evidence suggests the prisoners brought in to built it ... most of them political opponents of the regime ... were treated as slave labour. Many are said to have died in the construction and have been buried in the gloomy pine woods of the mountain below. There are no records. It is not a happy place. 

It's also a lonely one. There's little traffic up here; at several points we were alone on the vast, windswept plaza and in the cavernous church. Directional signs are sparse. The gate with a couple of guards on it hardly suggests a major tourist attraction. The tourist facilities facing the car park look like they've been boarded up for years. You get the impression that the government is purposely discouraging visitors, something reinforced by the monument's closure for maintenance for almost four years earlier in the century and the movement of Franco's tomb from here in 2019.

Why in the world, therefore, would you bother with this place? First, because it's an important part of history and what we don't remember we risk repeating. Second, because it's visually remarkable. The nearby palace and monastery of El Escorial would be the more logical sightseeing choice, but Spain is full of grandiose Renaissance architecture. This haunting, brutalist memorial  is unique in its style and setting; not just in Spain but, in my experience, in all of Europe.

The 500-foot tall cross at the pinnacle of the mountain sits on a plinth supported by gigantic sculptures of the evangelists who look like they've just emerged fully-formed from the granite of the mountain. It's visible from as much as 20 miles away, but you need to get inside the 3,000+ acres of woodland surrounding it to really appreciate the size. Don't attempt this without a car; there are miles of roads through the pine forest before you finally get to the parking area near the summit 3,000 feat above sea level. As the road climbs through the pine forest you start to get hints of the building below the cross; a huge colonnade built against the mountainside with enormous plazas stretching before them. There are car parks below two sides of the plazas, with ceremonial staircases leading up. At the back, the mountain rears. At the front, it falls away. The open space here is on the scale of St. Peter's in Rome. The colonnades even bigger. But the Vatican is always thronged with people. Here, the space seems all the bigger because you're sharing it with so few.

There's an archway in the centre of the colonnade, directly below the cross, with a door set within it. A pieta has been carved with jackhammers from the living rock above. Mary and Jesus look more like stone trolls than their traditional selves. The scale of everything seems intended to dwarf the visitor. Making the individual feel insignificant is one of the main purposes of Fascist architecture in Europe, but I've never seen it done to such a scale as it is here. 

That feeling continues as you step through the door, progressing through two ante-chambers at different levels before you descend into the main church. (The odd entry was mandated by Rome. No Catholic church is allowed to be bigger than St. Peter's. This basilica would have been were it not for the distinct separation of the entry porches from the church beyond.) It may be a church, but the place is more frightening than spiritual. Otherworldly guardian angels stand sentinel over the entry porch, hooded figures tower at each plinth upholding the rotunda above the altar. They are less religious, more like ancient kings or gods from high fantasy novels. In fact, the closest frame of reference I have for the place is the Dwarven city of Moria, also carved out of the living rock at gigantic scale but depopulated by the demonic Balrog. I wouldn't be surprised if something sinister was interred under the main altar here. 

The whole high fantasy feel is enhanced by the set of eight enormous Renaissance tapestries ... each almost 30 feet long ... interpreting scenes of apocalypse from the Book of Revelations. There are monsters, knights engaged gory battles, mystical figures floating in the air, tormented sinners and a repeating theme of many-headed composite beasts. Lion's and dog's heads float on snake-like necks joined to winged bodies and cloven hooves. I've never seen a set of tapestries like them, and they're in remarkably good shape. 

I suspect that producers of Game of Thrones or the Rings of Power have salivated over the idea of using

this place as a filming location, but as it remains a consecrated church so that's not going to happen. It is still, as intended, the monument to the fallen of the civil war and on that front deserves enormous respect. Ironically, the monument itself is in a back corner of a side chapel off the main altar, and remarkably humble. It is therefore the only spot in the complex that conveys a true sense of reverence. 

We visited on a gloomy day, with inky clouds racing across the sky and the half-light of a stormy afternoon washing everything into monochrome. This no doubt coloured my perception of the place.  And yet I can't imagine a better backdrop for a visit. The monument is glowering, dark and moody; it seems appropriate for the weather to match. 

While I understand the discomfort that many Spaniards have with the Valle de Cuelgamuros being a tourist attraction, I'd argue that it should remain one. 

Civil wars are dark, unnatural and bring out the worst in people. It's somehow fitting that the architecture that marks this period evokes a literary genre that typically has people facing off against supernatural evil. One can only hope that learning about such things in the past gives us a better chance of keeping them in the realms of fiction in the future.