Luxury holidays to Spain

Luxury holidays to Spain from Expressions Holidays. We have 30 years’ experience in offering luxury, tailor-made holidays for individuals featuring a personal selection of luxurious hotels, full of regional and local charm and character, which offer exceptionally high standards of comfort, service, facilities and cuisine. Many of our personally selected luxury hotels are among the most acclaimed in Spain; others are full of rustic local Spanish character and charm and we offer a number of Paradores in historic buildings throughout the country.

Spanish Expressions offers tailor-made luxury holidays to regions throughout Spain, from Galicia to Andalucia, including Castille and Aragon at the heart of Spain, but also the Balearics and the Canaries. With Spanish Expressions you can visit popular regions and resorts such as Andalucia with its historic cities of Granada and Seville, its ‘pueblos blancos’ behind the coast and also the coast itself from Malaga to Cadiz. We also offer you many, many less well-known regions such as Asturias, Extremadura and the Basque Country.

An increasingly important feature of Spanish Expressions which reflects our specialist knowledge and expertise in Spain is our range of special interest holidays, which might be golf or spa, constructing an itinerary for clients wanting to find wild flowers in Lanzarote in Spring, exploring the wineries and wine tasting in Rioja and the Duero valley, following the ancient historical tracks and paths from north to south and east to west across Spain.

SPAIN - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
We've done Andalusia and Barcelona. Which parts of Spain do you think are genuinely underrated for a discerning traveller?
Several, and we're glad you've asked. The north of Spain — what we call Green Spain — is consistently the revelation for clients who assumed they'd exhausted the country. Cantabria and Asturias offer a coastline that rivals anything in northern Europe, backed by the extraordinary peaks of the Picos de Europa, and the food and cider culture of Asturias is entirely its own thing. Galicia — rainy, Celtic, dramatic — culminates in Santiago de Compostela, one of the great medieval cities of Europe. Extremadura is perhaps the most undervisited region of all: its Renaissance towns of Trujillo, Cáceres and Mérida are extraordinarily preserved and almost entirely uncommercialised. The Heart of Spain — Castile, La Mancha, Salamanca — rewards those who want to understand the country at a deeper level. And the Canary Islands, beyond the resort strip, contain landscapes of volcanic strangeness and beauty quite unlike anywhere else in Europe, particularly La Palma and El Hierro. Tell us what you've seen and we'll tell you what you haven't.

We're interested in the Paradores. How do they actually work, and are they worth it?
The Parador network is one of the genuinely great ideas in European tourism, and for the right traveller — which your audience almost certainly is — they are often among the most memorable stays in Spain. They are state-owned hotels, formally star-rated, housed in converted historic buildings: former monasteries, convents, Renaissance palaces, Moorish fortresses, medieval castles. The Parador de Granada sits within the walls of the Alhambra itself — there is no closer you can get to one of the world's great monuments. The Parador de Ronda occupies a former town hall on the lip of the gorge. The Paradores in Extremadura — Trujillo, Cáceres, Jarandilla — are quartered in some of the finest buildings of 16th-century Spain. Quality varies and knowing which ones genuinely deliver — and which to combine for a touring itinerary — is exactly where we add value. We feature Paradores throughout our programme alongside privately-owned hotels, and we'll advise on the right combination for what you're looking for.

Spanish food has changed enormously. How do you navigate the difference between serious gastronomy and tourist fare when planning an itinerary?
With thirty years of experience and a team that visits regularly, which is the honest answer. The Basque Country remains the most concentrated area of serious cooking in Europe — San Sebastián and Bilbao between them hold a remarkable number of Michelin stars, and the pintxos culture of the old town in San Sebastián is something that rewards several evenings of unhurried exploration. Beyond the Basque Country, Andalusia's food at its best — fresh seafood, jamón from the Jabugo dehesas, sherry pairings at a serious bodega in Jerez — is entirely different from the tourist coast version of the same cuisine. Our food and wine holidays in both Andalusia and the Heart of Spain are built around access to producers and experiences that go well beyond a restaurant reservation: sherry bodega visits, olive oil tastings, cookery sessions, wine estate stays. We know which restaurants justify the journey and which hotels have kitchens that are genuinely part of the experience — and we're frank about both.

We'd like to explore Spain by rail. Is that realistic for the regions you cover, and how does it compare to driving?
More realistic than most people assume, and for certain journeys genuinely superior. Spain's high-speed AVE network is impressive — Madrid to Seville takes under two and a half hours, Madrid to Barcelona just over three — and the experience of arriving in a city centre rather than an out-of-town airport is one that our rail clients consistently appreciate. For the north, we offer two extraordinary luxury train journeys: the Transcantábrico, which travels the length of the Green Coast from San Sebastián to Santiago de Compostela over nine nights, and the Costa Verde Express, a shorter version of the same route. Both are all-inclusive, combining on-board accommodation with daily excursions, and they represent a completely different way of experiencing northern Spain. For touring Andalusia's cities, rail is often preferable to driving — Granada, Seville, Córdoba and Ronda are better arrived at by train or transfer than negotiated by hire car. Driving, on the other hand, remains the right choice for the countryside, Extremadura, the Basque hinterland and anywhere that rewards exploration at your own pace. We'll advise which suits each itinerary.

We're considering Spain in the autumn or spring rather than summer. What does that actually change about the experience?
Quite significantly, and for the better in most respects. Andalusia in October is warm, uncrowded and harvest-golden — the vendimia (grape harvest) is underway, the light is extraordinary and the major monuments are walkable without the pressure of peak season crowds. Spring in the south means wild flowers across Extremadura and the Alpujarras, migrating birds along the Atlantic coast, and Seville in April during Semana Santa — one of the most visually dramatic festivals anywhere in Europe, though one that requires careful planning and early hotel booking, which is where we earn our keep. The north and the Canary Islands work differently: Galicia and Cantabria are best from May to September, while Lanzarote and the Canaries are genuinely excellent between November and March, offering reliable warmth when the mainland is cold. The Canaries in winter are not a compromise — for the right client, particularly those interested in the volcanic interior or the island-hopping of the western islands, they are the main event.