Asturias

Asturias calls itself "paradise" on its own tourism branding, and the green, mountainous northern coast makes a reasonable case for it. This is cider country — sidra is poured from a height to aerate it, a genuine skill practised in every sidrería — and a region whose Celtic-influenced culture, rainy Atlantic climate and jagged Picos de Europa mountains share more with Galicia and Cantabria than with the sun-baked south most visitors associate with Spain.

Asturias was the only part of Spain never conquered by the Moors, a point of regional pride still referenced in its identity as the birthplace of the Reconquista. That isolation produced a wealth of pre-Romanesque churches, UNESCO-listed and unique to the region, predating the Romanesque style that spread across the rest of Christian Spain. The region's two festivals here reflect its rural, tradition-bound character rather than the urban spectacle of festivals further south.