The Costa Brava Run

Two weeks crossing Spain from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean, finishing on the Costa Brava. Of all the Caminos tours this is the one that covers the most ground, and it is arranged as a fly-drive with the hire car included or with the ferry and your own car.

It starts on the Basque coast near Bilbao and works east and south, through La Rioja’s vineyards and into Navarra, with Pamplona and the hill town of Olite on the way. Roncesvalles sits in the pass where the Camino crosses from France. Then Aragón: the Somontano wine region, the castle at Loarre, the gorges around Alquézar and the rock towers of the Mallos.

From there the route keeps going east along the Pyrenees, through Lleida, and comes out on the Mediterranean in Catalonia for the Costa Brava, where the coast turns to pine and cliff and small coves.

Fourteen nights and a circular route, with the widest choice of airports in the range, from Bilbao and Santander at one end to Barcelona, Girona and Perpignan at the other. The price is per person for two sharing, bed and breakfast, including a hire car; flights are not and a ferry option is available. Worth being direct about one thing: Caminos publish no day-by-day plan for this tour, and their description promises two national parks without naming either of them. The regions above come from their own route notes. Ask them for the itinerary and the parks before committing. It suits a driver who wants to cross a country rather than tour a corner of it.