Not to miss

San Sebastián

Famed as a ritzy resort for wealthy Spaniards who want to get away from the hordes in the south, stunning San Sebastián has been a stronghold of Basque nationalist feeling since well before Franco banned the use of Euskera, the Basque language, in the 1930s.

Donostia, as the city is known in Euskera, is a surprisingly relaxed place with a small-town feel. Those who live here consider themselves the luckiest people in Spain and won't hesitate to tell you so. After a short stay you may well begin to appreciate their immodest claim.

Valencia City

Spain's third-largest city, and capital of the province of Valencia, comes as a pleasant surprise to many. Home to paella and the Holy Grail, it is also blessed with great weather and the spring festival of Las Fallas, one of the wildest parties in the country.

One of Valencia's best attractions is the baroque Palacio del Marqués de Dos Aguas. The facade is extravagantly sculpted and the inside is just as outrageous. The Museo de Bellas Artes also ranks among the best museums in the country, containing works by artists such as El Greco, Goya and Velázquez.

Barcelona

After a makeover lasting more than two decades, Barcelona has transformed itself into one of the most dynamic and stylish cities in the world. Summer is serious party time, but year-round the city sizzles - it's always on the biting edge of architecture, food, fashion, style, music and good times.

The buildings, especially the work of the eccentric genius Gaudí, will blow you away. The art, with significant collections by Picasso and Miró, will make you clammy all over. The people, with their exuberance, their creative spirit, their persistent egalitarianism, will fascinate you.

Bilbao

Post-industrial Bilbao, the largest city in Basque Country (the País Vasco) is transforming itself with ambitious urban-renewal projects, most notably the marvellous Museo Guggenheim. This twist-up of glass and titanium, designed by acclaimed architect Frank Gehry and inspired by the anatomy of the fish and the hull of a boat, is the city's showpiece.

The contents of this sardine can are no less stunning than its exterior: works by Serra, Braque, Kandinsky, Picasso, Warhol and more line its walls and halls. The Museo de Bellas Artes, just 300m up the road, is also worth a look. When you tire of art riches, wander over to the restaurants and bars of the medieval casco viejo (old town).

Las Hurdes

Nowhere in Spain has been untouched by tourism, but beautiful Las Hurdes in mountainous northern Extremadura comes close. Time has not quite stood still, but it has certainly slowed right down, and many people still live in the traditional stone houses that are unique to this corner of Spain.

Madrid

This is Spain's headiest city, where the revelling lasts long into the night and life is seized with the teeth and both hands. Strangers quickly become friends, passion blooms in an instant, and visitors are swiftly addicted to the city's charms.

Madrid may not have the Roman origins that get city historians hot and bothered, and it may be a comparative parvenu, selected from rural obscurity to become the capital only in the second half of the 16th century, but it oozes an ebullience that rarely fails to move.

Teruel

Teruel is one of Aragón's most engaging cities, an open-air museum of ornate Mudéjar monuments almost without peer in Spain. But this is a living museum where the streets are filled with life, a reflection of a city growing in confidence, reasserting itself as a city with cultural attitude. For decades, Teruel had something of an image problem and an air of neglect, a place seemingly left behind by modern Spain's mainstream renaissance - 'Teruel existe!' ('Teruel exists!') is still an oft-heard, only partly tongue-in-cheek refrain. But the city has pulled itself up by its boot-straps and it's well worth seeing what all of the fuss is about. In winter, Teruel can be one of the coldest places in Spain, so come prepared.

Australian Embassy

Casal Lambda gay & lesbian information

A gay and lesbian social, cultural and information centre.

Asociación de Asistencia a Mujeres Violadas

Offers advice and help to rape victims and can provide details of similar centres in other cities, though only limited English is spoken.

US Embassy

INSERSO

Government department for the disabled, with branches in all of Spain's 50 provinces.

Alcázar

Rapunzel towers, turrets topped with slate witches' hats and a deeeeep moat at its base make Alcázar a prototype fairytale castle, so much so that its design inspired Walt Disney's vision of Sleeping Beauty's castle. Fortified since Roman days, the site takes its name from the Arabic al-qasr (castle) and was rebuilt and expanded in the 13th & 14th centuries.

What you see today is an evocative over-the-top reconstruction of the original which burnt down in 1862.

Highlights include the Sala de las Piñas, the ceiling of which drips with a crop of 392 pineapple-shaped 'stalactites', and the Sala de Reyes (Kings' Room), featuring a three-dimensional frieze of 52 sculptures of kings who fought during the Reconquista. The views from the Torre de Juan II are exceptional, and put the old town's hill-top location into full context.

Parc Nacional d'Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici

Two million years of glacial action has created two east-west valleys lined by jagged peaks of granite and slate, forming a home for pine and fir forests, open bush and grassland. Bedecked with wildflowers in spring and with some 200 small estanys (lakes), streams and waterfalls, this is a wilderness of rare splendour.

The two main valleys are those of the Riu Escrita in the east and the Riu de Sant Nicolau in the west. The Escrita flows out of the park's largest lake, Estany de Sant Maurici. The Sant Nicolau's main source is Estany Llong, 4km (2.5mi) west of Estany de Sant Maurici across the 2423m (7949ft) Portarró d'Espot pass. Three kilometres (1.8mi) downstream from Estany Llong, the Sant Nicolau runs through a particularly beautiful stretch known as Aigüestortes (Twisted Waters).

Apart from the valley openings at the eastern and western ends, virtually the whole perimeter of the park is mountain crests, with numerous spurs of almost equal height reaching in towards the centre. One of these, from the south, ends in the twin peaks Els Encantats (2746m and 2733m, 9009ft and 8966ft), towering over Estany de Sant Maurici.

Castillo de Santa Bárbara

From this 16th-century castle there are sweeping views over the city. Inside is the Collección Capa, a permanent display of contemporary Spanish sculpture. A lift, reached by a footbridge opposite Playa del Postiguet, rises through the bowels of the mountain. It's a pleasant walk down through Parque de la Ereta via Calle San Rafael to Plaza del Carmen.

Museo del Prado

Converted in 1819 from a natural history museum to a repository of Spanish art held in royal collections, the Museo del Prado hosts over 7000 works. The strongest collections are the 17th- and 18th-century Spanish paintings on the 1st floor, featuring the likes of Velázquez, Goya and da Ribera.

The building in which it is housed is itself a masterpiece. Completed in 1785, the neo-Classical Palacio de Villanueva served as a cavalry barracks for Napoleon's troops during their occupation of Madrid between 1808 and 1813. In 1814, King Fernando VII decided to use the palace as a museum for the royal collections and five years later the Museo del Prado opened with 311 Spanish paintings on display.

Toledo

Toledo is known as La Ciudad Imperial (the Imperial City) for a reason; this is Iberia's Rome with a cultural slug of mosques, synagogues, churches and museums. Toledo's labyrinthine narrow streets, plazas and inner patios are reminiscent of the medinas of Damascus and Cairo. Stay until dusk, if you can, when the streets take on a moody, other-worldly air.

The dominant Alcázar has been the scene of military battles from the Middle Ages right through to the 20th century. Other attractions include the city's two synagogues, the Iglesia de Santo Tomé (which contains El Greco's greatest masterpiece, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz) and the Museo de Santa Cruz. Archaeologists working on Toledo's Carranque recently uncovered a 4th-century Roman basilica, Spain's oldest.

In 1986 Unesco declared the city a monument of world interest. In spite of this, people are abandoning the old city for the characterless but comfortable modern suburbs sprawled out beneath it, leaving behind public servants, tourists, the rent-protected elderly and a medieval city in urgent need of attention.

Córdoba Mezquita

The Córdoba mosque is one of the great creations of Islamic architecture with its shimmering golden mosaics and rows and rows of red-and-white-striped arches disappearing into infinity. Even the large numbers of tourists passing through the place today cannot destroy the mesmerising effect of the Mezquita's ever-changing perspectives and plays of light.

Architecturally revolutionary, the Mezquita recalls in a unique way the yards of desert homes that formed the original Islamic prayer spaces - in this case with a roof over the worshippers' heads, supported by a forest of columns and arches suggestive of an oasis palm grove.

What we see today is the Mezquita's final Islamic form with two big changes: a 16th-century cathedral plonked right in the middle (which explains the often-used description 'Mezquita-Catedral'); and the closing of the 19 doors which communicated the Mezquita with the outside world and filled it with light. Also missing, of course, are the rows and rows of kneeling men, praying in unison, who would have filled the Mezquita.

Alhambra

From outside, Alhambra's red fortress towers and imposing walls rise from woods of cypress and elm, with the Sierra Nevada forming a magnificent backdrop. Inside the marvellously decorated emirs' palace, the Nasrid Palace and the Generalife gardens, you're in for a treat. Water is an art form here and its sounds take you into another world. Book in advance.

The spell can be shattered by the average 6000 visitors who traipse through the site each day, so try to visit first thing in the morning or late in the afternoon, or treat yourself to a magical night visit to the Palacio Nazaríes.

The Alhambra has two outstanding sets of buildings, the Palacio Nazaríes and the Alcazaba (Citadel). Also within its walls are the Palacio de Carlos V, the Iglesia de Santa María de la Alhambra, two hotels, several book and souvenir shops and lovely gardens, including the supreme Generalife.

La Sagrada Família

If you only have time for one sightseeing outing, this should be it. Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family) inspires awe with its sheer verticality and, in the true manner of the great medieval cathedrals it emulates, it's still not finished after more than 100 years.

The church was the project to which Antoni Gaudí dedicated the latter part of his life. He stuck to a basic Gothic cross-shaped ground plan, but devised a temple 95m (312ft) long and 60m (197ft) wide able to seat 13,000 people. The completed sections and the museum can be explored at leisure.

Open the same times as the church, the Museu Gaudí, below ground level, includes interesting material on Gaudí's life and other work, as well as models and photos of La Sagrada Família. You can see a good example of his plumb-line models, which showed him the stresses and strains he could get away with in construction. Gaudí is buried in the simple crypt at the far end.