Where to See in Spain
Serra de Tramuntana Mountains
Deciding on my “Top 10 NATURAL Places to See in Spain” proved even more complicated than creating the previous list of “Top 10 MAN MADE Attractions“. Whilst I’ve visited just about everywhere of historical note I still haven’t seen all the country’s natural beauty spots. You might be surprised to hear that Spain is Europe’s second most mountainous country after Switzerland. It has nearly 5000km of coastline and almost 10% of the national territory is designated as some type of national park in what is a very ecologically conscious nation. These are my top 10 natural places to see. They are in no particular order: Picos de Europa Mountains These mountains stretch along the coasts of Asturias and Cantabria in northern Spain. The scenery is stunning which attracts many hikers and the wildlife is a major attraction which includes many birds of prey and a population of around 60 bears which exist in isolated areas to the south. Beaches along the northern coastline are spectacular in places and there’s nothing like swimming there whilst
Mallorca is best known for its package tourism yet there are few places I’ve ever visited in the world with so much beauty in such a small area. My favourite part of the island is to drive from Pollensa in the northwest through the Serra de Tramuntana mountains to Port d’Andratx in the southwest. Try to go off season when the roads are quiet and stop off at small mountain villages en route. Pyrenees Mountains Where do I begin? The Pyrenees stretch 430km from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean taking in the Spanish regions of Navarra, Aragon and Catalonia. There is no end of activities for the summer months and Spain’s best skiing is in these mountains. A good base for getting around from is Jaca and an essential place to visit for its unbelievable beauty is the national park of Ordesa. Sierra de Grazalema High above the Costa del Sol is the popular old town of Ronda which attracts many day trippers. If you get the chance you should stay in Ronda and take a day out to the Sierra de Grazalema which is yet another area of stunning natural beauty.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation selected Frank Gehry as the architect, and its director, Thomas Krens, encouraged him to design something daring and innovative. [9] The curves on the exterior of the building were intended to appear random; the architect said that “the randomness of the curves are designed to catch the light”.[10] The interior “is designed around a large, light-filled atrium with views of Bilbao’s estuary and the surrounding hills of the Basque country”.[11] The atrium, which Gehry nicknamed The Flower because of its shape, serves as the organizing center of the museum.[6]
When the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened to the public in 1997, it was immediately hailed as one of the world’s most spectacular buildings in the style of Deconstructivism (although Gehry does not associate himself with that architectural movement),[12] a masterpiece of the 20th century. [13] Architect Philip Johnson described it as “the greatest building of our time”,[14] while critic Calvin Tomkins, in The New Yorker, characterized it as “a fantastic dream ship of undulating form in a cloak of titanium,” its brilliantly reflective panels also reminiscent of fish scales.[13] Herbert Muschamp praised its “mercuri-
al brilliance” in The New York Times Magazine.[15] The Independent calls the museum “an astonishing architectural feat”. [11] The building inspired other structures of similar design across the globe, such as the Cerritos Millennium Library in Cerritos, California.
L’Oceanogràfic Spanish: El Oceonográfico, “The Oceanographic”) is an oceanarium situated in the east of the city of Valencia, Spain, where different marine habitats are represented. It was designed by the architect Félix Candela and the structural engineers Alberto Domingo and Carlos Lázaro. It is integrated inside the cultural complex known as the Ciutat de les Arts i de les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences). It was opened on 14 February 2003.
US gal) ocean tank with sharks, rays and other fish.[1] There are 45,000 animals of 500 different species including fish, mammals, birds, reptiles and invertebrates — amongst these are sharks, penguins, dolphins, sea lions, walruses, beluga whales, and more — all inhabiting nine underwater towers. Each tower is structured in two levels and represent the major ecosystems of the planet.
The park is divided into ten areas. The marine areas reflect the Mediterranean habitats, the General information[edit] polar oceans — the Arctic, the islands, the tropical seas, the The underwater restaurant temperate seas and the Red Sea. The park also includes a Sand tiger sharks in the ocean dolphinarium, an auditorium tank with a Red Sea aquarium, an W area of mangrove swamps and Mediterranean seagrass aquar- marshland, and a garden with ium more than 80 different species of plant. A beluga in the arctic tank The Oceanographic is the larg- The sea water is pumped from est complex of its type in Europe the beach of La Malva-Rosa with a surface of 110,000 square having passed all of the necesmetres (1,200,000 sq ft) and a sary requirements for quality. water capacity of 42,000,000 litres (11,000,000 US gal).[1] The architecture of the complex This includes a 26,000,000-litre is a work of the architect Fé(6,900,000 US gal) dolphinarium lix Candela and the engineers and a 7,000,000-litre (1,800,000 Alberto Domingo and Carlos
Lázaro, who made the structural design of the concrete coverings of the buildings. An aquarium (plural: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which water-dwelling plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquatic reptiles such as turtles, and aquatic plants. The term, coined by English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse, combines the Latin root aqua, meaning water, with the suffix -arium, meaning “a place for relating to”.[1] The aquarium principle was fully developed in 1850 by the chemist Robert Warington, who explained that plants added to water in a container would give off enough oxygen to support animals, so long as their numbers do not grow too large.[2] The aquarium craze was launched in early Victorian England by Gosse, who created and stocked the first public aquarium at the London Zoo in 1853, and published the first manual, The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea in 1854.[2]
Spain officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España),[a][b] is a sovereign state largely located on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe, with archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, and several small territories on and near the north African coast. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north and northeast by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Along with France and Morocco, it is one of only three countries to have both Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines. Extending to 1,214 km (754 mi), the Portugal–Spain border is the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union. Spanish territory includes two archipelagos: the Balearic Islands, in the Mediterranean Sea, and the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast. It also includes two major exclaves, Ceuta and Melilla, in continental North Africa; and the islands and peñones (rocks) of Alborán, Alhucemas, Chafarinas and Vélez de la Gomera. With an area of 505,990 km2 (195,360 sq mi), Spain is the largest country in
Southern Europe, the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union, and the fourth largest country in the European continent.. By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania. In the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain emerged as a unified country in the 15th century, following the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs and the completion of the centuries-long reconquest, or Reconquista, of the peninsula from the Moors in 1492. In the early modern period, Spain became one of history’s first global colonial empires, leaving a vast cultural and linguistic legacy that includes over 500 million Spanish speakers, making Spanish the world’s second most spoken first language, after Chinese and before English.
Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a middle power and a developed country with the world’s fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and many other international organisations. Etymology The origins of the Roman name Hispania, from which the modern name España was derived, are uncertain due to inadequate evidence. Down the centuries there have been a number of accounts and hypotheses: LADY OF ELCHE The Renaissance scholar Antonio de Nebrija proposed that the word Hispania evolved from the Iberian word Hispalis, meaning “city of the western world”.
The inland areas of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Central Plateau, have a continental climate. The summers are very hot, regularly exceeding 35 °C (95 °F). By contrast, there are very low temperatures in winter, with −15 °C (5 °F) not uncommon, and under −20 °C (−4 °F) regularly occurring. These are often accompanied by heavy snowfall.[citation needed] Although it rarely rains during summer, there is often heavy rainfall in spring and autumn . The annual rainfall exceeds 500mm.[citation needed] Average max. and min. temperatures in °C Precipitation totals in mm Source: Agencia Estatal de Meteorología[5] [show]Imperial conversion An oceanic climate prevails from the Pyrenees to the Asturias, area which incorporating Galicia is sometimes called “Green Spain”, characterised by relatively mild winters and warm summers. The climate and landscape are determined by the Atlantic Ocean winds whose moisture gets trapped by the mountains circumventing the Spanish Atlantic coast. Because of the Foehn effect, the southern slopes fall inside the rain shadow zone and so Green Spain contrasts starkly with the rest of Spain. But the summers remain warmer than many comparable North-west European regions (about 21 °C (69.8 °F) in July in Santander versus 16 °C (60.8 °F) in Brest or Liverpool). The rainfall is generally abundant, exceeding 1,000 mm (39.4 in) and is fairly evenly spread out over the year, with the driest month above 30 mm (1.2 in), which is the minimum criteria for an oceanic climate according to Köppen. Although Köppen officially limits the oceanic domain to the Asturias and the Basque Country region, certain authors such as Trewartha prefer to extend this climatic zone to the north-west part of the peninsula to Galicia, due to the moderate summer temperatures.[citation needed] Temperatures vary only slightly, both on a diurnal and a seasonal basis, and averages range from 9 °C (48.2 °F) in January to 21 °C (69.8 °F) in July. The moderating effects of the sea are less prominent further inland, where temperatures are more extreme than those on the coast. Distance from the Atlantic Ocean also has an effect on precipitation levels, so there is less rainfall in the east than in the west. Autumn (October to December) is the wettest season, while July is the driest month. The high humidity and the prevailing off-shore winds make fog and mist common along the north west coast; this phenomenon is less frequent a short distance inland because the mountains form a barrier to the maritime moisture. The Galician climate (Csb) is similar to that of the coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and Vancouver. It is characterised by year-round mild temperatures with drier summer months, often resulting