My 17 secret places in Spain, one by autonomous community

Spain is a place so full of fascinating places that sometimes we pass small hidden gems without realizing it, dwarfed by the big name landmarks.

These are 17 places that fascinate me and do not appear on the lists of the most visited in each autonomous community, and all of them deserve a detour.

Andalusia: the hermitage of the Virgen de Gracia (Archidona, Malaga)

View of the hermitage of the Virgen de Gracia, in the Malaga town of Archidona. JESUS ​​NOGUERA FERNNDEZ (Getty Images / iStockphoto)

Archidona is one of the great Andalusian historical cities, with an important Roman and Arab past.

The old Muslim city was up, on the hill that dominates the current urban complex.

There the Christians transformed the old aljama mosque into the hermitage of the Virgen de Gracia, patron saint of the town.

Located about 60 kilometers from the capital Malaga, it is a delight for the senses because, instead of destroying the temple, they simply readapted it to the new cult and enlarged the main nave a bit.

Thanks to this, today we can enjoy an authentic Hispano-Muslim mosque from the 9th century with hardly any alterations.

Six red marble columns have been preserved, three naves facing east —towards Mecca— and a simple wooden coffered ceiling, a unique case in all of Andalusia.

The 17th century extension consisted of another three naves,

Oriented perpendicular to the Muslim ones, covered by an oval vault.

A century later, the set was enlarged to the appearance we see now.

More information

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Aragon: Montanana (Huesca)

Montañana is already mentioned in documents from the year 987, and is one of the best examples of a medieval rural nucleus that has been preserved in the Pyrenees.

And all thanks to the fact that the population gradually moved to the new town, Puente de Montañana, leaving the old one abandoned, but intact.

Church of the medieval town of Montañana, in Huesca. Iñigo Fdz de Pinedo (Getty Images)

Lost at the bottom of a lateral ravine of the Noguera-Ribagorzana river, it is made up of two neighborhoods distributed on the sides of a torrent that crosses a Gothic bridge.

You have to leave the vehicle on the outskirts and continue on foot through streets full of arches, passageways and vaulted corners to which the enormous rehabilitation carried out by individuals has brought life back.

Several watchtowers still surround the town.

The largest is the tower of the Prison, which belonged to an old fortress.

it arrives

from Huesca towards Barbastro, until connecting with N-230.

Asturias: Grandas de Salime Ethnographic Museum

Personal work of José Navieras, better known as

the last blacksmith of the town, whose love for popular culture led him to gather several thousand objects of all kinds related to arts, trades, festivals and daily chores. Of the towns in the northwest of the peninsula, the Ethnographic Museum of Grandas de Salime, 141 kilometers west of Oviedo, is a reference point in western Asturias.

🧐Spaces of our Museum to visit again and again🧐Sites of our Museum to visit again and again👉 https://bit.ly/MuseoEGSPP

Posted by Ethnographic Museum of Grandas de Salime "Pepe el Ferreiro" on Wednesday, December 7, 2022

What makes this ethnographic museum special is that it does not have exhibits in glass cases.

They are complete scenes that reproduce home, life and work in rural Asturias.

The kitchen, the fireplace, the pharmacy, the shoemaker, the barber, the grocery store... Real objects in their real environment, gathered by Pepe throughout a lifetime.

As if the owners of it had suddenly left 60 or 70 years ago and left everything as is.

The best time tunnel to a pre-industrial Asturias, but not so far away.

Balearic Islands: S'Espalmador (Formentera)

Nothing defines the image of Formentera better than a transparent and temperate sea and a pristine blue sky.

As usually happens in S'Espalmador, a flat and sandy islet, covered with dunes and junipers, which extends the Balearic island beyond the sandy bar of Punta de Es Trucadors, to the north.

The island is private and belongs since 2018 to a family from Luxembourg who bought it for an astronomical amount, but you are allowed to visit its beautiful beaches, where the water is blue and malachite green and the Mediterranean so docile that bathers think they are floating. suspended in the air.

Aerial view of S'Espalmador, on the Balearic island of Formentera. Anton Petrus (Getty Images)

S'Espalmador is one of the last vestiges of Balearic nature unaltered by man.

It can be reached by private boat or on tourist excursions that depart during the summer season from the port of La Savina and from Ses Illetes beach.

There are also excursions from the island of Ibiza.

Canary Islands: viewpoints of El Hierro

The panoramic view of the island of El Hierro from the Peña viewpoint, 700 meters high. Flavio Vallenari (Getty Images / iStockphoto)

El Hierro is a vertical island, in which the volcanoes shaped steep slopes.

Nothing better to visit than a route through the natural viewpoints left by the slag and lava.

The most famous of all is on the old road from Valverde to Frontera.

It is the viewpoint of La Peña, where César Manrique built, or rather masked, a volcanic stone construction.

Another impressive balcony is the Jinama viewpoint over the El Golfo valley, always immersed in that green and melancholic humidity with which the alders impregnate the El Hierro rock.

The one in Tanajara is near El Pinar.

A perfect vantage point to enjoy sunsets over the pine forests that have given the town its name.

And, shortly before the village of Isora, is the viewpoint of Las Playas, one of the most superb on the Canary Island,

Cantabria: church of San Martín, in Cigüenza

In the middle of a rural area with perfect lines, next to a group of houses that does not reach the status of a village, a little piece of South America suddenly appears in the middle of Cantabria.

It is the church of San Martín de Tours, a beautiful example of colonial architecture.

It was ordered to be built by Juan Antonio de Tagle Bracho, a resident of the town who emigrated to Peru and became a high-ranking figure of the Viceroyalty.

Wanting to bring a little piece of Lima to his native land, he copied the plans for the Capuchinas church in the Peruvian capital and commissioned the architect to build one just like it in Cigüenza.

The church of San Martín de Tours, from the 18th century. Jose Arcos Aguilar (Getty Images / iStockphoto)

It is a Baroque temple with a Latin cross plan and a large façade flanked by two towers topped by two stone pyramids.

Tagle Bracho did not get to contemplate his work because he died in Lima in 1790 before it was finished.

The stately stone house in front of the temple also belonged to the Tagle family.

Castile-La Mancha: Alcalá del Júcar (Albacete)

Panoramic view of Alcalá del Júcar, in the province of Albacete (Castilla-La Mancha).Alamy Stock Photo

To visit this mountain town, you have to leave your car on the other side of the bridge that crosses the river Júcar and walk into one of those labyrinthine cities that has managed to preserve its historical legacy and, above all, its medieval urbanism.

Alcalá del Júcar is not a place of great monuments or singular buildings.

Quite the opposite.

The charm of this enclave in the province of Albacete lies in the simplicity, in the popular.

In its image perched on the Hoz del Júcar, in one of the purest and most unknown corners of the La Manchuela region.

It has remains of a castle of Arab origin, a baroque church, like all of them.

Its barely 700 inhabitants have always dedicated themselves to agriculture, but this invention called rural tourism has transformed the town:

Castilla y León: poor Romanesque of Sahagún (León)

The church of San Lorenzo, in the Leonese municipality of Sahagún.Alamy Stock Photo

Sahagún, on the Camino de Santiago as it passed through León, was called the Spanish Cluny because of the shelter that pilgrims found in the great medieval monastery of San Benito, one of the key institutions in the kingdom of León and the presence of the French order of Cluny on Spanish soil.

It was the Cluniac monks who made San Benito a rich, famous monastery with good income.

That focus of wealth attracted a good number of new residents to the town that was growing around the abbey, among them many Mudejar artisans from Muslim Spain who turned Sahagún into the capital of poor Romanesque due to the use of mud bricks, instead of stone, in churches still as monumental today as San Tirso, San Lorenzo or La Peregrina.

Catalonia: the historic center of Girona

The Oñar river as it passes through Girona and, in the background, the city's cathedral. Kavalenkava Volha (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Having a province full of wonders has always eclipsed the capital of Girona, so this is one of the most unknown cities in Catalonia for the traveler.

And yet, it has a wonderful historic center.

His most picturesque photograph is a cloth of façades in soft pastel colors that are aligned along the banks of the Onyar river.

The colored houses were built in the 19th century to replace the pieces of wall demolished by the French.

But long before, a Jewish community lived in labyrinthine neighborhoods within the walls, full of stairs and alleys, now restored.

It is the Jewish quarter of Girona, one of the best preserved in Spain.

Among all this historical jumble there is also a leading role for the Arab baths (from the end of the 12th century),

a cathedral that mixes Gothic and Baroque and stones that belonged to the Via Augusta, the Roman road that linked Tarragona with Rome.

An open-air history museum.

Community of Madrid: La Pedriza del Manzanares

It's no secret place: Madrileños flock to it every weekend.

But it is of all the natural spaces of the Community of Madrid the one that has the most curious morphology.

The granite of the upper Manzanares river basin was modeled by erosion and tectonic movements until it became a gigantic chaos of rounded blocks, the domes, which pile up in height until they culminate in the Yelmo peak (1,714 meters), the top of La Pedriza.

The Manzanares River is born between these scree areas and shelters a good portion of the natural life of this mountain range, which led the authorities to protect it under the name of Cuenca Alta del Manzanares Regional Park.

Hikers in La Pedriza (Community of Madrid).Alamy Stock Photo

Much frequented by hikers and climbers from Madrid, La Pedriza is, geologically speaking, the youngest portion of the Sierra de Guadarrama and one of the most attractive for nature lovers.

The usual entry point is the Canto Cochino car park, 6.5 kilometers from Manzanares la Real.

Valencian Community: valleys of the Marina Alta (Alicante)

The Xap viewpoint, in the Gallinera valley, in the Marina Alta (Alicante). Geography Photos (Universal Images Group via Getty)

Sometimes all it takes is a few miles off the beaten track to discover hidden gems.

That happens on the Alicante coast, where years of uncontrolled development have left a wall of apartments and chalets.

But if from Dénia we direct our steps inland, in the direction of Pego, in just half an hour by car we will feel that we have crossed the tunnel of time.

A narrow rocky gorge and palm trees gives access to the three valleys of the Marina Alta: Gallinera, Alcalá and Ebo, the last Moorish redoubt in Alicante.

A landscape from another time: orchards and azarbes, almunias and ditches, white villages with cool alleyways, palm groves and bell towers that stand out on the adobe roofs of the Moorish houses.

The most traditional face of the province.

Extremadura: Jewish quarter of Hervás (Cáceres)

Hervás, one of the towns that has best managed to preserve the popular architecture of the Cacereña mountain. angeluisma (Getty Images / iStockphoto)

In addition to being one of the towns that has best known how to preserve the popular architecture of the Cacereña mountain, Hervás is worth a visit for its famous Jewish quarter: a maze of cool and twisted streets where its important Jewish community resided.

The traditional construction style of projecting balconies and facades with exposed wooden beams have survived here like nowhere else in the Sierra Extremadura.

Of the 45 families of Jewish artisans and merchants that were in the town in 1492, fourteen left after the expulsion order of the Catholic Monarchs;

the rest were forcibly converted.

Some stately homes also stand out in Hervás, such as the Dávila palace or the Town Hall, a Baroque construction that was previously the infirmary of a Franciscan convent.

Galicia: Fragas do Eume (A Coruña)

The monastery of Caaveiro, in Fragas do Eume (A Coruña).Alamy Stock Photo

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In Galician it is a mountainous area where vegetation grows wild.

A forest, come on.

And east of Eume, just over an hour from the noise of the city of A Coruña, is one of the best-preserved Atlantic forests in Galicia.

Ash, chestnut, birch, willow, maple, hazel, laurel and, of course, oaks (oaks) form a dense screen of greenery and mystery, enhanced by relict Tertiary ferns that grow in the most humid areas.

The magic of the forge is enhanced by the ruins of some mills and dams, by old defensive towers and by the Caaveiro monastery.

It is the ancient forest, the vegetal cover that covered Galicia a few million years ago.

80 kilometers of biodiversity extended along the banks of the Eume that were declared a natural park in 1997.

It is accessed from A Coruña by the AP-9 until exit 21F to Pontedeume (42 kilometres).

From there, take the AC-114 highway to take the Ombre detour to Caaveiro.

La Rioja: cave of the Hundred Pillars of Arnedo

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The sandstone and clay cliffs that border the Rioja town of Arnedo look like a Gruyère cheese (although, in reality, this cheese does not have holes).

Those of Arnedo were excavated by man since the dawn of the Middle Ages as a room, granary and also hermitages.

Years of digging and digging resulted in a maze of tunnels known today as the Hundred Pillars Cave.

One of the most impressive places for the traveler who enters this land of La Rioja Oriental.

It is believed that during the High Middle Ages it could have housed the monastery of San Miguel.

Inside you can follow the enabled path and notice the scenes recreated in its corners and rooms, as well as enjoy the views.

Until the middle of the 20th century, around 200 cave houses were still in use in this area.

Navarra: Santa María de Eunate (Muruzábal)

Santa María de Eunate, in Muruzábal (Navarra).Alamy Stock Photo

Magic and mystery come together in the solitary church of Santa María de Eunate, in the Navarrese plain, on the Camino de Santiago.

It is believed that it was the Knights Templar (although there is no written evidence) who built this octagonal temple at the end of the 12th century, which follows the design of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

Eunate means "one hundred gates" in Basque, but why the Templars located it on this lonely plain remains an enigma.

Its construction seems to be due to the rise of the Jacobean Route that took place around the 12th century and which gave rise to numerous religious constructions where the path ran.

The polygonal arcade that surrounds the temple as an external cloister stands out as much as its eight-ribbed vault and its interior space full of symmetries.

A unique temple that keeps a certain mystical halo, ideal for gathering pilgrims and for the delight of lovers of the magical and the esoteric.

The beauty and harmony of the place alone is worth the trip.

Basque Country: the hermitage of Antigua (Zumárraga)

Interior of the hermitage of Antigua, in Zumárraga (Gipuzkoa). Iñigo Fdz de Pinedo (Getty Images)

A two-kilometre road ascends from Zumáraga between hills and bucolic meadows —in strong contrast to the coldness of the industrial area that surrounds the Gipuzkoan city—, to the hermitage of La Antigua, one of the most original and impressive churches in the Basque Country.

It is enough to access its interior and look towards the ceiling to know why.

A perfect framework of braces, trusses, corbels, footings and beams make up its wooden coffered ceiling.

A carpentry job so perfect that they say that if we turned the church over and threw it into the water, it would float.

Like a ship.

Everything that the eye sees, and what does not, is made by assembling wood, without a single nail.

La Antigua occupies the place of an ancient watchtower.

Region of Murcia: Aledo

The description of the itinerary between the Region of Murcia and Almería made by the Arab geographer Al Idrisi in the 12th century already cites the fortress of Aledo, a town 59 kilometers from Murcia city along the A-7, where life goes by at a fast pace. calmed by some narrow and cool streets to which Moorish tile houses and whitewashed walls peek out, pressed one against the other, as if they were afraid of falling down the cliffs on which the fortress and the town are perched.

View of Aledo, in the regional park of Sierra Espuña (Region of Murcia).Alamy Stock Photo

What has made Aledo famous is the tower of La Calahorra, a fort built in the 11th century, one of the oldest in the region, which dominates the valley from a rock.

Adjacent to the castle stands the church of Santa María, a baroque temple with two twin towers.

Every January 6, the quiet streets of Aledo are overwhelmed by a flood of people who come to see its famous Auto de los Reyes Magos, an ancient liturgical drama performed by the residents.

The town is also one of the gateways to the Sierra Espuña Regional Park, one of the green lungs of the region.

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