Bilbao - La Rioja - Coastal Cantabria (Taste of the North)

A week pairing Bilbao with Rioja and the Cantabrian coast, which is about as much variety as northern Spain can deliver in seven nights. Caminos arrange it as a fly-drive with the car included, and you set your own pace.

Two nights in Bilbao start it. The Guggenheim is the obvious reason to come and Gehry’s titanium is still startling thirty years on, but the Bellas Artes next door is the better museum and the pintxos bars in the old town are the real point of an evening here. San Sebastián is close enough for a day.

Then two nights in La Rioja, where the vineyards run up to the Sierra de Cantabria and the wineries have become architecture in their own right. Laguardia is a walled hill town with cellars dug underneath the houses, Labastida sits below the ridge, and the Dinastía Vivanco museum does a genuinely good job of explaining wine culture rather than just selling it.

The last three nights drop down to western Cantabria for San Vicente de la Barquera, Comillas, Santillana del Mar and the caves at Altamira, with Bárcena Mayor and Carmona inland. It is a gentler end to the week than the start. Three bases across seven nights, and short drives between them. The price is per person for two sharing, bed and breakfast, with an economy hire car included; flights are not, and a ferry option is available if you want to bring your own car. It suits anyone who wants a city, a wine region and a coastline in one week without a long drive in it.