Coping with Spain

For many, the image of Spain is the Costa del Sol with its huge hotels, crowded beaches, "English food served" signs, evening entertainments of "typical" flamenco shows, sangria and tasteless paella. Most visitors know little more of Spain than this, but beyond the Meditteranean coast there is a very different country - a country with a variety of scenery ranging from mountains and lakes to semi-desert, a country with a rich and complex history and culture which have left their monuments, a country which is also perhaps the most dynamic in Western Europe. "Coping with Spain" is designed for those who want to venture beyond the coast and into a land which is a blend of the traditional and the ultra-modern. The delight of travelling around Spain is that there are still relatively few who do so and in a day one can travel from the high-tech life of a modern city to regions so distant from the mainstream of modern life that the visitor genuinely has the experience of exploring.
"Coping with Spain" aims to give a general orientation to the country, travel, accommodation, cuisine, wines, traditional festivities, the natural world, how to make the most of even brief contacts with Spaniards and how to solve practical problems while there.