Fitur 2021: how good a getaway feels

The 17 Spanish communities will be, together with the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, the main protagonists of Fitur 2021, the International Tourism Fair, which will be held in Madrid from May 19 to 23 in person and with mandatory protocols both by exhibitors and by professionals of the sector in an edition weighed down by the pandemic.

In the professional sessions (from Wednesday to Friday), tickets and accreditations can only be obtained online and must be accompanied by a PCR or antigen test.

On the weekend, when the fair opens its doors to the public, Ifema's protocols contemplate a limitation of capacity to 50%, temperature measurement, mask requirement ... This is a preview of what is expected at Fitur.

enlarge photo Horseshoe arches in the Mosque of Córdoba.

marinzolich Getty

Andalusia

Pastures on horseback

Horseback riding through the meadows of the Sierra de Huelva of Aracena are one of the outdoor plans that visitors to pavilion 4 of Ifema will find, dedicated entirely to the eight Andalusian provinces.

A space that will also host events such as the Huelva Columbian Festivities (August 3) or the BluesCazorla Festival (which has been postponed to July 2022).

The beauty of numbers

Unveiling the geometry and mathematical proportions that hide the Alhambra in Granada, the Mosque of Córdoba or the Cathedral of Seville, which has just reopened its doors this May, is the proposal of the Discover Foundation for scientific tourism, which prepares new guided tours of some of the emblematic monuments of Andalusia.

For now, its augmented reality application for mobiles allows these visits to be made freely and virtually.

Malaga, smart city

Crowned by its citadel, with cultural spaces such as the Picasso Museum and a gastronomy that has its famous espeto as its icon, the city of Malaga will retain the title of European capital of smart tourism until September 2021 in recognition of its outstanding tourism proposal in accessibility. sustainability, digitization, cultural heritage and creativity.

Córdoba, the magnificent

Córdoba, the city with the most sites declared world heritage by UNESCO (Medina Azahara, the historic center, the mosque and the centennial Fiesta de los Patios), where Arab, Jewish and Christian culture coexisted, will have its own space within pavilion 4 The Andalusian capital was one of the two places in Spain, along the Camino de Santiago, included in the list of

52 destinations to love in 2021

produced by

The New York Times

.

enlarge photo Cloister of San Juan de la Peña (Huesca), stop on the Slow Driving Aragón routes.

Angel Villalba Getty

Aragon

Sustainability Awards

Aragon is presented as a "destination of nature, adventure and disconnection".

At its stand, the first Edelweiss Awards will be presented, awards that recognize the most inspiring and sustainable initiatives within tourism development in this community.

Among the finalists are active tourism companies such as Pirinature or Experiencias Turismo.

Roll and roll

Slow Driving Aragón proposes seven thematic routes to enjoy the Aragonese road and landscapes without haste.

And for those who prefer hiking, the brochure

13 hiking routes in the province of Zaragoza

is also available on the internet.

Asturias

Balconies to paradise

On the AS-260 road between Colunga and Arriondas you reach the Fitu viewpoint, with views from the Asturian coast to the Picos de Europa.

Also on the list of scenic balconies in the Principality are Pedro Udaondo's, in Asiego (Cabrales), with views of Picu Urriellu (Naranjo de Bulnes) or the San Emeterio lighthouse.

The Coastal Path passes through the latter, which allows you to walk along the Asturian coastline between beaches, cliffs, capes and forests.

Five basics in Spain

Knights tournaments.

The Puy du Fou park, in Toledo, premieres four daytime shows set in the Middle Ages.

Beekeepers for a day.

Experiences to discover the fascinating world of bees and honey in Cantabria.

A basalt tower.

The Cancarix python (Albacete) is a volcanic chimney discovered by erosion.

'

Road trip'.

Six routes invite you to drive slowly through the most beautiful landscapes of Aragon.

360 degrees.

From the Fitu viewpoint you can see the Asturian coast and the Picos de Europa

Asturian territory

Throughout its course, the Navia River threads the nine Asturian councils that make up the Navia Historical Park, a museum network that has 15 exhibition spaces and 18 archaeological sites.

To travel it, three thematic itineraries have been designed:

The first settlers

,

The lords of the palace-houses

and

Histories of the sea

, each with its own starting point, respectively: Grandas de Salime, Tapia de Casariego and Puerto de Vega.

The park can also be explored on its own, without sticking to any predetermined route.

Balearics

They are from the sea in Mallorca

The sun and the sea mark the rhythms of Mallorca.

Twice a year - on February 2 and November 8 - the light that passes through the Gothic rose windows of La Seu de Palma aligns itself to project the figure of an 8 on the interior wall of the main façade of the cathedral.

The Balearic island is one of the places with the most sundials in the world (968), but above all it is coveted for the transparent and blue water of its remote beaches: Cala Torta, Coll Baix, Sa Calobra, Cala Tuent, S'Amarador, Caló des Moro, S'Almunia, Cala Mondragó, Es Trenc, Cala Es Caragol, the sandy area of ​​Formentor, Mitjana, Cala Varques, Es Màrmols ...

The Pitiusas sisters

Ibiza claims its interior charms and its paths, used by the ancient inhabitants to move between towns and that today invite you to bright and blue walks.

The municipality of Santa Eulària des Riu launches the Great Route, a 65-kilometer circular route that crosses 14 points of tourist and heritage interest.

A shorter option is the Route of the River, of three kilometers, along the only channel of the Balearic archipelago.

The neighboring island of Formentera invites you to discover corners such as Ses Illetes or Cape Barbaria without crowds.

enlarge photo Cactus of the Canarian Botanical Garden Viera y Clavijo (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria).

Alamy

Canary Islands

Very starry skies

The quality of the night sky in Gran Canaria earned it Unesco certification as a Starlight destination in 2018.

In the municipality of La Aldea de San Nicolás, the Balcón and Cruz del Siglo observatories have been renovated, and the La Sabinilla observatories have been inaugurated.

Sacred mountains and gardens

Other places with which the island seduces are Risco Caído and the Sacred Mountains, which have just been incorporated into the Google Arts & Culture portal, and the Viera y Clavijo Canarian Botanical Garden, an orchard in the city of Las Palmas dedicated to the flora of the Macaronesia.

Two other oases of the Canary archipelago: the Lanzarote cactus garden, designed by César Manrique, and the botanical garden of Puerto de la Cruz, in Tenerife.

Cantabria

Peñas above, along the Camino Real

Beautiful towns such as Bárcena Mayor, Carmona or Tudanca are hidden between the Saja and Nansa rivers, living places that proudly display their mountain architecture with wooden balconies from which geraniums hang. The writer José María de Pereda set his novel

Peñas

Arriba in Tudanca

, and in 

the Casona de los Libros, an 18th century building where the mountain writer and academic José María de Cossío lived until his death, the writers Concepción Arenal, Giner de los Ríos, Miguel de Unamuno, Gerardo Diego, Miguel Hernández and Camilo José spent time Cela, among others.

Converted into a museum, it has a large library, with some manuscripts and more than 25,000 volumes, a family archive and important artistic works.

The Camino Real starts from Tudanca, a route that passes through the crops and accompanies the course of the Nansa through its riverside forest. 

Autotourism and apitourism

The community invites you to drive along the roads of the Cabuérniga valley or through the environment that surrounds the Asón and Soba valleys, the source of the Gándara river and its network of rock caves.

The Cantur portal groups together the active tourism offer, such as the experiences organized in Valderredible to discover the world of honey and bees.

Castilla la Mancha

The magic of history

The Puy du Fou España leisure park, in Toledo, reopened in March with activities throughout the day.

Three new historic villages have been recreated and four daytime shows (three indoors and one outdoors) are offered in addition to the nighttime

El Sueño de Toledo

.

Another place to travel back in time is the castle of Belmonte (Cuenca) and the exhibition of catapults and full-scale siege engines in Trebuchet Park, at the foot of the fortress.

Canyons and volcanoes

The sickle of Beteta, in the high mountains of Cuenca, is one of the geosites highlighted by the Castilla-La Mancha tourist office, among which there is also the Barranco del Río Dulce natural park, in Guadalajara;

the ravines of Castrejón and Calaña, in Toledo;

the volcanic complex of Campo de Calatrava (Ciudad Real), or the python of Cancarix, in Hellín (Albacete), the only volcano on the Peninsula whose chimney has been discovered by erosion.

Castile and Leon

Rural art

Terranostrum is a project aimed at energizing and promoting the many tourist resources that the towns of Castilla y León have. Their website includes 2,700 routes through the nine Castilian-Leon provinces. One of the most curious is the Route of the Murals and Writers in the Burgos municipality of Villangómez, an open-air museum with 25 large-scale works distributed throughout the town. Along the route there are plaques with fragments of the books that inspired them and QR codes with information on their authors. And a great appointment with the letters: the first International Festival of Literature in Spanish of Castilla y León (FILE), directed by the journalist Jesús Ruiz Mantilla, which will be held from June 18 to July 4. The FILE will feature authors such as Javier Cercas, Elvira Lindo,Antonio Muñoz Molina Ian Gibson or Najat El Hachmi among many others, gathered around 170 activities spread over cities and towns in the nine provinces of the region.

The path of the Archdeacon

This 28-kilometer trail (GR-201), which connects the Sajambre valley from León and the Asturian town of Amieva, is one of the oldest and most beautiful routes in the Picos de Europa, used by the Romans to connect the northern ports peninsular with the plateau.

It owes its name to the Sajambrés cleric Pedro Díaz de Oseja, archdeacon of Villaviciosa, who in the seventeenth century dedicated part of his income to conditioning this historic road, now recovered for walkers.

The green metropolis

The Burgos tourist office website includes 10 plans for families, such as visiting San Zadornil, a forest with streets and traffic signs that is part of the Montes Obarenes-San Zadornil natural park and can be explored on foot, on horseback or on electric bicycles.

enlarge photo Kayak trip through the Congost de Mont-rebei, in the province of Lleida.

ARTUR DEBAT Getty

Catalonia

Congost de Mont-rebei

On the borders of Lleida with the province of Huesca is one of the most remote places in Catalonia: the Congost de Mont-rebei, a 500-meter-high gorge carved by the Noguera Ribagorzana river in the Montsec mountain range, with its section most spectacular on the Montfalcó catwalk.

It is also enjoyed by kayak or boat.

Football in PortAventura

PortAventura World reopens today, May 15, its doors in Salou (Tarragona).

This year, as a novelty and in collaboration with LaLiga, it opens

The Beat Challenge

, which will consist of a virtual soccer game at the national level, a restaurant, a store and a digitized center.

Valencian Community

Hot springs and deserts in Castellón

The province of Castellón hides places like Montanejos and its Fuente de los Baños, a natural pool of thermal waters between vertical rock walls;

the Peñagolosa mountain, in the Maestrazgo region, or the Desierto de las Palmas natural park, which stretches behind Benicàssim.

Madrid's community

The women's neighborhood

Madrid will be this year the Partner Destination of Fitur in its special edition for the recovery of tourism.

Among its novelties are the 25 Original Visits of Madrid itineraries, all in the open air.

The 300th anniversary of the birth of the Italian architect Francesco Sabatini (1721-1797), author of the Puerta de Alcalá, is also commemorated, and the map

Malasaña and other women

, designed by Ana Rossetti and illustrated by Carmen García Huerta, is published.

The frozen mountains of Benidorm

The Serra Gelada occupies a promontory 432 meters high, overlooking the Mediterranean between the Alicante towns of Altea and Benidorm.

The protected area includes 725 hectares of fossil dunes and the waters that surround the islets of Benidorm and Mitjana and Punta Bombarda.

Estremadura

Silver road

The Xacobeo 2021-2022 has given a new impetus to the Vía de la Plata, the Roman road that was the backbone of the western peninsula, part of whose route passes through Extremadura.

As a result of the collaboration with the other three communities that it crosses - Andalusia, Castilla y León and Galicia - the website El Camino de la Plata was born, with information on the stages, tourist services and places of interest.

Galicia

Stone and water

Rooteiro Slow Atlantic Experience offers sustainable wine tourism and gastronomy experiences, as well as guided hiking excursions such as the Ruta da Pedra e da Auga (PR-G170), which passes through the

councils

of Meis and Ribadumia (Pontevedra) in a walk of eight kilometers between mills to the monastery of Santa María de Armenteira.

enlarge photo Mirador de Castro, in the Sil canyon (Ourense).

MIGUEL RIOPA Getty

Mao river walkways

A 16-kilometer trail runs along the Mao River, in the Ribeira Sacra (Ourense).

The starting point is the Fábrica da Luz, a former hydroelectric power station.

A wooden walkway suspended in the middle of the slope, with viewpoints, accompanies the last stretch through the canyons of the river until its mouth in the Sil.

The Rioja

Biker rivers

There are not only wine and wineries in La Rioja.

Also water: that of the Najerilla, Iregua and Leza rivers, along whose banks one of the motorcycle tourism itineraries that the tourist office proposes passes in a journey of 189 kilometers and 1,303 curves.

The cradle of a language

The glosses that an anonymous monk from the Riojan monastery of Suso wrote at the beginning of the 11th century in the margins of the

Codex Emilianensis

are considered the first document of the Castilian language.

The Emilianensis program organizes activities for families in the surroundings of San Millán de la Cogolla and the monasteries of Suso (above) and Yuso (below), declared a UNESCO world heritage site.

Prior reservation.

Navarre

Adventures around the bush

Nature and adventure parks are one of the assets for a family vacation in Navarra.

In addition to Sendaviva, the nature park in Arguedas, which reopened its doors last April, there are, among others, the circuits of hanging bridges and zip lines such as IrriSarri Land, near Igantzi, or Baztan Abentura Park, in the town by Elizondo.

Basque Country

Sailing to Compostela

Under the slogan

Women and the Sea

, which seeks to give visibility to the role of women in the maritime sector, on June 4 the VI edition of the Navega el Camino regatta will set sail from Hondarribia (Gipuzkoa).

To get the Compostela you have to navigate a minimum of 100 nautical miles and walk at least the last 10 kilometers to the Cathedral of Santiago.

Two wheels and 1,500 kilometers

In addition to the well-known commitment to the natural environment, the cities and its wonderful gastronomy, this year the Basque Country places emphasis on cycling tourism, relying on its network of BTT centers, which cover more than 1,500 kilometers of mountain bike routes.

Murcia region

Gastronomy and concerts

The Murcian community offers free insurance to its visitors and rushes its activities as the Spanish capital of gastronomy.

The concerts of Las Noches del Malecón also return to Murcia, from May 27 to August 1.

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