The Best of Andalusia

The town cut in two by the El Tajo gorge, with the Puente Nuevo thrown across a hundred-metre drop. The roads leading to it are as good as the town.

The rainiest corner of Spain and, as a result, the greenest. Tight switchbacks between limestone walls, vultures overhead.

Zahara de la Sierra, Setenil de las Bodegas — a village built under a huge rock — and Vejer de la Frontera. White villages on the ridge, at the end of every valley.

The road to Pico Veleta, the highest asphalt in Europe, at over 3,300 metres. Snow and a view to Africa on the same day.

The southern slope of the Sierra Nevada: Capileira, Trevélez and a road that climbs and drops without a single straight, through villages of Berber origin.

Spain's most visited monument and the reference point of Nasrid architecture — palaces, water courtyards and the Generalife, with the Sierra Nevada behind.

The forest of eight hundred red-and-white columns and arches, with a Renaissance cathedral grown in the middle of a mosque.

The Mudéjar Alcázar, the Giralda and the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. April evenings in the Santa Cruz quarter.

The only true desert in continental Europe. Leone's westerns were shot here — the sets are still standing.

Volcanic coast, bays without buildings and the driest point in Europe. The road above the cliffs, early in the morning.

A limestone plateau eroded into impossible shapes, at 1,200 metres. A landscape like nothing else in Spain.

Tarifa and the Atlantic coast, with Morocco visible across fourteen kilometres of water. Permanent wind, endless beaches.