12 Day Northern Spain Tour

• Day 1: 

  Arrival in Santiago de Compostela
  Welcome to Spain. We arrive in Santiago de Compostela, a city built of golden granite and protected as a national monument in its entirety.
  
  Arcades shade its flagstone streets, and the old town is at its best on foot. Pilgrims have ended their long walks in the square before the cathedral for over a thousand years, and tomorrow we join them there.
  
  Overnight in Santiago de Compostela.

   

  Included Meal(s): Dinner, if required
• Day 2: 

  Santiago de Compostela: City Tour
  Santiago has drawn pilgrims for over a thousand years, and we begin where their walk ends, in Obradoiro Square, named for the stonemasons' workshops that built the cathedral. The Archbishop's residence preserves 12th-century chambers, the neoclassical Town Hall (formerly Raxoy Palace) faces the cathedral, and San Jeronimo College, a 17th-century building, is entered through a Romanesque portal from an earlier site.
  
  Statues of St James throughout the cathedral show him as a pilgrim, with staff, broad-brimmed hat and scallop shell, symbols recognized across Christian Europe. We tour the Cathedral Museum and Cloister, where sacred art unfolds over the centuries, then stop at the Platerias Gate, the cathedral's only surviving Romanesque facade, whose sculptures narrate biblical stories in stone.
  
  The highlight is a guided walk across the cathedral roofs. We enter through Gelmirez Palace beside the cathedral, climb past the gallery above the Gloria doorway and step out onto the rooftops. From there the historic centre spreads below us, and the care that went into planning the city becomes easy to see.
  
  Overnight in Santiago de Compostela.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 3: 

  Santiago de Compostela - Leon
  We travel by road to Leon, where Roman foundations support Gothic magnificence. The city began as a Roman military camp and became the capital of a medieval Christian kingdom, and we start at San Isidoro Collegiate Church, a Romanesque masterpiece and the final resting place of 23 kings and queens.
  
  The 13th-century cathedral is Gothic in the French manner, its walls opened to more than 100 stained-glass panels that fill the interior with jewel-toned light.
  
  Walking on through the old quarter, we pass stretches of medieval wall and remnants of the original Roman fortifications, then reach Casa de Botines, a neo-Gothic building by Antoni Gaudi that shows his imagination at work beyond Barcelona. Leon's place on the pilgrim routes to Santiago brought the prosperity behind these monuments.
  
  Overnight in Leon.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 4: 

  Leon - Cave of Altamira - Bilbao
  We leave Leon and drive north to Altamira, where painters were at work well over 14,000 years ago. Discovered in the 1870s, the cave's nearly perfect paintings of wild animals and human handprints stand among the finest Paleolithic art known, made when ice still covered much of Europe.
  
  The original cave is closed to preserve the paintings, so we visit the museum and its precise replica. Up close, the bison, horses and boar show how the artists used natural pigments and the cave's own contours to give their animals volume.
  
  Continuing into Basque country, we reach Bilbao, tucked among the green coastal mountains of Euskadi. Locals call it Bilbo in Basque and affectionately botxo, the hole, for the valleys that shelter it. Fishing hamlets huddled here for protection from Norman raiders and Atlantic pirates, and the industrial port that grew from them has reinvented itself as a cultural destination without losing its fierce Basque independence.
  
  Overnight in Bilbao.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 5: 

  Bilbao: The Guggenheim
  Medieval Bilbao opens the morning, its cobbled Old Town streets and intimate squares tracing the city's path from fishing village to industrial powerhouse to cultural destination.
  
  Then comes the Guggenheim. Frank Gehry's titanium-clad museum covers 31,329 sq m/349,000 sq ft, and its curves and angles shift with every viewpoint, so the building reads as sculpture before we step inside. Its atrium rises 50 m/165 ft, and the galleries hold 20th-century American and European art by artists such as Kandinsky, Mondrian, Picasso, Pollock and Serra, in rotating exhibitions.
  
  The museum gave its name to the Bilbao Effect, the idea that a single building can revive a city's economy and civic pride.
  
  The afternoon is ours to shape. We can stay on at the Guggenheim, visit the Basque Museum or the Fine Arts Museum, take a guided boat tour along the Nervion estuary to see the city's industrial heritage, or join the bus excursion to San Sebastian, about 1 hr 20 min each way. Our Tour Leader helps us plan.
  
  Overnight in Bilbao.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 6: 

  Bilbao - Fly to Barcelona: City Tour
  We fly from Bilbao to Barcelona and meet our local guide for a panoramic introduction to the city, where Catalan culture and architectural invention meet. We pass Plaza Espana, ringed by grand buildings and fountains, and the 1992 Olympic sites, a moment when Barcelona showed itself to the world and set off the renewal still under way.
  
  From the Montjuic viewpoint the skyline, the Mediterranean and Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, rising like a stone forest above the city grid, lie spread out before us. We continue along Gran Via, one of the city's busiest thoroughfares, lined with shops, restaurants and historic buildings.
  
  The tour ends at Park Guell, Gaudi's UNESCO World Heritage site, where mosaic pathways, undulating benches and the famous ceramic lizard turn public space into something between garden and fantasy. It is a first look at a city where medieval foundations carry modernist invention.
  
  Overnight in Barcelona.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 7: 

  Barcelona: City Tour
  We begin in the Barrio Gotico, where Roman foundations carry one of Europe's best-preserved medieval quarters. Narrow, winding streets lead to Barcelona Cathedral and the Royal Palace, and the weathered stone and shadowed alleys keep the Middle Ages close.
  
  We then transfer to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's masterpiece and Barcelona's best-known landmark, for a guided tour. Its spires twist upward like living growth, and stained glass casts rainbow patterns across forest-like columns inspired by the geometry of nature. Begun in 1882, the basilica is still being completed by contemporary craftspeople committed to Gaudi's vision. The Museu Picasso adds another artistic dimension, with the formative works of Spain's most celebrated modern artist.
  
  The afternoon is free. We might visit the National Art Museum of Catalonia for Catalan art from medieval to contemporary, the Joan Miro Foundation or Parc de la Ciutadella, or simply stroll La Rambla with its shops, cafes and street performers.
  
  Overnight in Barcelona.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 8: 

  Barcelona: Montserrat & Leisure Time
  Montserrat rises from Catalonia's horizon, its jagged silhouette explaining the name, "serrated mountain". Pilgrims have climbed among its stairs, caves, chapels and hermitages for over a thousand years. We drive through Montserrat Natural Park to the Sanctuary, 725 m/2,380 ft above sea level, where on clear days the Pyrenees form the backdrop.
  
  In the Royal Basilica we visit the Chapel of Our Lady of Montserrat, home of La Moreneta, the Black Virgin. This 12th-century Romanesque wooden statue is Catalonia's patron saint and draws devotees from across the Catholic world. An audiovisual exhibition, Montserrat Portes Endins (Montserrat from Within), sets the sanctuary in its history.
  
  We also taste four locally produced liqueurs, a flavour of Benedictine monastery craftsmanship. Back in Barcelona the rest of the day is ours for museums, neighbourhood strolls or Mediterranean cafe life.
  
  Overnight in Barcelona.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 9: 

  Barcelona - Train to Madrid: Royal Palace
  Spain's high-speed rail carries us from Barcelona to Madrid in about three hours. This afternoon we tour the Royal Palace, the sovereign's official residence, now used only for state ceremonies.
  
  The palace arose over the 18th and 19th centuries after fire destroyed the medieval Alcazar in 1734. We see the principal staircase, throne room, gala dining room, silver museum and principal courtyard -- all decorated to Charles III's lavish tastes. The rooms hold royal collections built up over centuries: tapestries, paintings, furniture and decorative arts.
  
  With more than 3,400 rooms across 135,000 sq m, this is among Europe's largest royal residences, a scale that reflects the imperial ambitions of the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties and the wealth that flowed in from the Americas. Beyond its walls, Madrid's broad boulevards and grand squares give way to a street life that runs well into the evening, in the Spanish way.
  
  NOTE: The palace is sometimes closed without notice for official functions. If so, we apologize that the visit cannot go ahead.
  
  Overnight in Madrid.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 10: 

  Madrid & The Prado
  Madrid reveals its imperial grandeur on a panoramic tour that ends at the Prado. On the way we pass Plaza Espana and the Cervantes Monument, honouring the author of Don Quixote, whose tale of impossible dreams pursued with noble determination has come to stand for the Spanish spirit.
  
  The Prado opened in 1819 and holds the finest works collected by Spanish royalty, alongside Spanish paintings gathered from many sources over two centuries. Its Italian masterpieces reflect Spain's long ties to the Italian peninsula, but we concentrate on the Spanish masters who define the national artistic identity.
  
  Velazquez's court portraits reveal the complexity of imperial Spain. Goya moves from royal commissions to haunting scenes of war, Ribera works in dramatic chiaroscuro, El Greco elongates his mystical figures and Zurbaran keeps his religious scenes contemplative.
  
  After our guided tour we stroll up Gran Via into the old quarter and the capital's street life. The rest of the day is free for lunch and independent exploration, and our Tour Leader has recommendations for shopping, historic sites and galleries. The nearby Reina Sofia holds important modern art, including Picasso's Guernica, and the Museo Naval documents Spanish maritime history from the Armada onward.
  
  Overnight in Madrid.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 11: 

  Madrid: Toledo Day Trip
  Toledo sits on a rocky promontory almost encircled by the Tagus, and the geography explains the history. Romans fortified the rock, Visigothic kings made it their capital, Muslim rulers held it for nearly four centuries and Alfonso VI took it for Castile in 1085. Each era left buildings behind and none was fully erased by the next, so a synagogue, a cathedral and a masterpiece stand within a few streets of one another.
  
  We begin at the Cathedral, started in 1226, a Gothic statement of Castilian ambition in soaring vaults and carved stonework. A short walk away, the Santa Maria la Blanca Synagogue was built by Toledo craftsmen in an Almohad-influenced Moorish style, its horseshoe arches a reminder that Jewish, Muslim and Christian builders drew on a shared repertoire.
  
  The Church of Santo Tome holds El Greco's Burial of the Count of Orgaz, painted in the 1580s for this very church. The artist was born on Crete and trained in Venice and Rome before settling in Toledo, and the canvas carries that range: a sober Spanish funeral below, and above it elongated saints and angels that recall Byzantine icons.
  
  The afternoon is ours after lunch. Toledo's lanes are steep and cobbled, so we take them slowly, with time for the shops, markets and hidden corners of the old town before we return to Madrid.
  
  Overnight in Madrid.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast and Dinner
• Day 12: 

  Departure
  Our journey through Spain ends in Madrid. From the pilgrim city of Santiago to the hilltop of Toledo, we have crossed a country where every era stands beside the last. Depending on flight times, there may be time for a final stroll through the old quarter, or a last look at the streets around the Prado, before we say farewell to our travelling companions and our Tour Leader.
  
  Buen viaje! (Have a good journey!)
  
  Depart.

   

  Included Meal(s): Breakfast

*The red tour trail on the map does not represent the actual travel path.