Look beyond Barcelona. Here's where locals travel in Spain
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Loading... - Emerald Murphy
- 07 Nov 2022
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Spain is one of the world’s most-visited countries, drawing more than 83 million travelers in 2019, according to the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization.
In terms of international arrivals, that makes it second only to France.
But the Spanish are also avid travelers within their own country, with nearly 93% choosing to travel within Spain in the first quarter of 2022, according to Spain’s National Statistics Institute.
From where to eat to new luxury hotels in Madrid and desserts celebrating different saints’ days in Barcelona, Spanish residents told CNBC where they love to go.
Northern Spain
Spanish Hotelier Pau Guardans got to know his country as a child, when his family would spend vacations road-tripping in a red and white Volkswagen “Kombi” van, a popular bus-style vehicle in the 1970s.
Now, he likes to go on vacation to the Costa Brava region of Catalonia on Spain’s northeast coast.
“I would recommend visiting any of its beautiful ‘calas’ [coves] and eating in its ‘chiringuitos’ [beach bars] with good fish and rice dishes. In the interior, it is worth discovering the magnificent gastronomy of the area with products from the countryside,” he said.
Guardans, founder of Unico Hotels, a luxury group that includes the Grand Hotel Central in Barcelona and the Principal Madrid, recommended eating at Can Salo, a restaurant in a 16th-century farmhouse in the village of Palau-Sator.
Further inland, he suggests Eth Triton, a restaurant in a valley in the Spanish Pyrenees called the Val d’Aran, for “good food in a family atmosphere — and a good wine cellar!”
Northern Spain is also home to two of the country’s wine regions. “For autumn trips, without a doubt, I love to visit the wineries in Ribera del Duero or La Rioja,” Patricia Alonso, a marketer living in Madrid, said in an email to CNBC.
