Peter Barron, one of the authors of the just published guidebook "Frommer's Spain", discussed ways to enjoy the uncrowded side to Spain, by going to less popular (but still tremendously appealing) regions and cities, and visiting the country when others don't.

Takeaways:

1. The just published Frommer's Spain guidebook is a substantial resource for travelers, meticulously written and edited to ensure accuracy and depth.
2. This podcast emphasizes the importance of responsible tourism, particularly in over-touristed areas like Barcelona and Mallorca.
3. Listeners are encouraged to explore lesser-known regions of Spain, such as Extremadura, which offers rich history and beautiful sights without the crowds.
4. The discussion highlights unique cultural experiences, including a visit to Barcelona's Hospital de Sant Pau, showcasing architectural beauty and historical significance.

Companies, places and people mentioned in this episode:

1. Frommers
2. Prado Museum
3. Barcelona
4. Hospital de Saint Pau
5. Celler de Can Roca
6. Esperit do Roca
7. Vii
8. Casa Bigote
9. La Gitana
10. Jerez
11. San Lucar
12. Costa Brava
13. Girona
14. Ronda
15. Cuenca
16. Philippe Stark
17. Jesus Segura

Foreign.

And welcome to the Fromer Travel Show.

I'm your host, Pauline Fromer, and beyond hosting this podcast.

I am also the publisher of the Fromers guides.

So I have an announcement to make.

Our just edited and written new guide to Spain is now on sale, and I couldn't be more proud of it because this is one I actually edited.

So I know very intricately and intimately how damn good this book is and how helpful it will be for folks who want to go to Spain and who wouldn't want to go to Spain.

To talk a bit about the book and about the challenges of visiting Spain, right now, I have Peter Barron on the line.

He wrote many, many chapters of the book.

Hey, Peter.

Welcome back to the Fromer Travel Show.

Hi, Pauline.

Lovely to be here again.

Thank you.

Well, it's lovely to talk to you.

And I can see you, our listeners can't.

You're in a beautiful room with beamed ceilings.

So where am I reaching you right now?

Well, we are in the countryside in Extremadura, just over the border from Andalusia in southwest Spain.

Quite a remote neighbourhood, but absolutely beautiful, surrounded by oak trees.

And you, I think people can probably tell from your accent that you're from Britain originally.

What drew you to move to Spain?

You own a house there?

Yeah, well, we've had a place here for about 10 years, but I've been visiting Spain for many, many years, 40 years or so.

And actually my first job was in Portugal, and I love Portugal.

And we were working in the Algarve many, many years ago, just after I left university.

And I distinctly remember the first time I came to Spain.

It was a wet Sunday afternoon and there wasn't much going on in Portugal.

And we took the ferry across the river to Spain.

And as we came in through the fog, I could hear trumpets playing and there was a fiesta going on in the Spanish town of Ayamonte, which was the first place I'd ever visited in Spain.

And I kind of fell in love with it that day.

And I just came back again and again and again.

And then eventually, about 10 years ago, we said, we've got to get a place here because it's so enjoyable.

We just love being here, love everything about Spanish culture and history and food.

And also, I have to say, the people, I mean, they are so welcoming, they're so supportive when you try to speak Spanish.

It's a wonderful place.

That's very interesting that you're saying that, because I think the impression the outside world is getting is that Spain welcoming right now, because it's being over touristed.

Certain parts of it are being over touristed.

And we'll talk a little later about what parts of Spain you can go to and be the only tourist in sight or one of the only ones.

But it just came out that Madrid or the Prado Museum in Madrid is going to be setting a limit for the amount of people who can visit there daily.

Right.

And then last summer we had people being shot with water pistols in Barcelona with tour, you know, signs of tourists go home.

So let's talk first about a little bit of the over tourism.

Where is it and what can people do to be a good tourist if you still want to go to those places?

Well, exactly.

I mean, everyone will have seen the headline saying tourists go home.

And I think you might get the impression that Spain doesn't want visitors or that visiting Spain might be a problem.

But it's certainly the case that Barcelona probably is the most troubled place where the town or the city sometimes feels overwhelmed by tourism, the impact that has on house prices, for example, or accommodation prices, on food and drink for local people.

So it is a real problem, I would say, particularly in Barcelona, perhaps in Mallorca and the Balearic Islands as well.

But, you know, Spain is a very big place.

And the extraordinary thing about Spain is that there are so many towns and cities right across the country which have, you know, beautiful historic places to go and see and, you know, spectacular things to do that there is.

There is plenty of space for visitors to go to places away from the beaten track.

And clearly it's a difficult one because if you're coming from the United States, for example, to visit Spain, of course you want to go and see the Prado, of course you want to go to see Gaudi's buildings in Barcelona.

Barcelona, you want to go to see the Alhambra in Granada or the Mezquita in Cordoba.

And of course you should.

They're all wonderful things and should be seen.

But you need to be sensitive that there's a lot of visitors there.

So I think it makes sense to travel out of season.

But it also makes sense, I think, to, yes, go and see the very famous sites, but also try to move away from those sites and go to other parts of the cities and seek out interesting and spectacular places away from the most famous sites.

And, you know, the book which you mentioned is full of fabulous things to do that are.

That are not well known, you know, really interesting cities and sites to see that very often you'll be there by yourself or just a Few other people when you go.

So it's by no means widespread across Spain and actually there's plenty of you here.

I am in Extremadura and I think a lot of the towns and cities of Extremadura would like to see more visitors.

And I'm biased, but I would love to see more people coming to some of the beautiful places we have around here.

Well, we'll talk about Extremadura in a moment.

But before we finish up with Barcelona, there are sites there that speak to how important Barcelona is in the world of design, in the world of architecture and the world of history, that not many people go to.

Like I went once, and you've written about this, to this extraordinary hospital in Barcelona.

And why do you go to a hospital?

Can you talk a little bit about that site there?

It's one of my favorites.

It's absolutely incredible.

And of course, Gaudi is the most famous architect of Barcelona, but there are a couple of other great architects as well.

And the hospital was designed by Dominique E. Montaneur, rather not a name that slips off the tongue, but his work.

I mean, he's probably most famous for the palace of Catalan Music, which is in the city and is absolutely extraordinary.

But as you mentioned, his hospital is my favorite building of his.

It's kind of like a hospital city built around the turn of the beginning of the 20th century.

And it was built with a philosophy that the healing process is better with beauty and light and greenery around.

So it has these pavilions which are decorated with stained glass and incredible ornate tiling.

It's absolutely beautiful.

It is huge.

And you can wander around it with not that many people there.

It's a wonderful place to visit.

It's called the Hospital de Pau.

And actually they've left some of the pavilions still with old beds in it, just as it was when it was operating as a hospital.

It's absolutely fascinating, extremely beautiful and really mind boggling that someone could put so much effort into building hospital.

Well, yeah, it's interesting because you do hear about the very specific theories they had of this disease should be treated in this way.

And that's why the design reflects that.

And you go into an operating room which very wisely is filled with natural light, because in those days they wouldn't have had the top types of electric lights that we now have in operating rooms.

And so to me, what was so Interesting was to see how practical this extraordinary beauty could be.

Yeah, I totally agree.

I mean, really inspiring and uplifting to be there.

And actually, funnily enough that the last time when we visited, we were actually doing some decoration on the house that we're.

I'm talking to you from now.

And we came back and we were so inspired by the tiles.

You know, we'd sort of decided we wanted white tiles in the bathroom.

We came back and said, no, no, no, we want to have beautifully colored tiles.

We were inspired by the hospital.

And you've been healthier ever since.

Right, Clearly.

So.

So let's talk about where you are.

Extrema.

Dora, which means Dora is hard and Extrema is extreme.

Right.

So does it mean it's a hard, extreme place?

Well, everyone does joke.

Everyone around here jokes that it means extreme and hard.

Actually, probably it means the land beyond the Douro River.

But it's a remote place.

It's Spain's least visited region and also Spain's least developed region.

And, you know, life is hard.

It's a hard agricultural life.

And the weather can be very, very hot in the summer.

Actually, it's been very wet here, unusually.

Very, very wet for the last couple of months because before that there had been several years of drought, but actually the rains have come.

But it's a fascinating place with a very interesting history, because the conquistadors who went to America and discovered the Americas and did all kinds of brutal things there largely came from Extremadura.

They were sort of tough country people who found it hard to make a living in Extremadura way back in the 16th century and went over to America to seek their fortune.

So the cities of Extremadura very much have been built on the money that the conquistadors sent back in the 16th century.

So if you go to places like Cathares or Trujillo, they have these extraordinary, beautiful palaces and churches built by the conquistadors.

So very, very fascinating history.

Very beautiful places because they're largely untouched.

And in the case of Cathares, for example, the medieval old town is completely beautifully preserved.

And then there are some very, very high end restaurants, most famously the Atrio restaurant, which is one of Spain's finest restaurants within this medieval environment.

And it is a magical experience.

Really, really cool.

But the history goes well back before the Conquistadors.

Right.

You also have some important Roman ruins there.

Absolutely.

So actually, the capital of Extremadura is a city called Merida, and that actually came from Emerita Augusta, it was a Roman city.

And it has some of the finest Roman ruins outside of Italy, particularly the Roman Theater, which is absolutely beautiful, beautifully preserved.

And the great thing about that is it's not just a relic or a ruin.

They still use it.

So in the summer, and in the summer you have lovely warm evenings.

And they.

They start.

They have a classical theatre festival that runs right throughout the summer.

It's July and August, almost throughout July and August.

And they have these performances in the.

And it is really wonderful.

It's a beautiful thing to see.

Hmm, it sounds wonderful.

I want to go to Extremadura someday.

Other parts of Spain that people may not get to as frequently are maybe the parts of Spain that people who are into literature most identify as being Spanish.

I'm talking about Castillo La Mancha, where a man of La Mancha came from, where Don Quixote came from.

What is it like to travel in that area?

And is it or is it not overrun by literature lovers?

Well, it's very fascinating because you probably need a car.

You really need to hire a car to go.

And it's going from Toledo.

You know, if you were staying in Madrid or visiting Toledo, I mean, Toledo is a wonderful place.

It makes a great road trip from Toledo through the countryside of Casilla La Mancha, where Don Quixote, where his adventures all took place.

And the remarkable thing about the Don Quixote story is that many of the places that are mentioned in the book still exist.

So inns that he stayed at and, well, most famously the windmills which he tilted at the windmills still exist.

And they're absolutely beautiful.

They make an incredible sight, particularly at sunset.

And taking photographs of the windmills at sunset is a beautiful thing.

So the interesting thing about it, of course, there are literary lovers who visit, but these are vast, expansive land and they're very empty.

There's not very many people living in Castilla Mancha.

And if you take a road trip, you may not see too many people around.

You might see the occasional bus tour that rolls into town to take pictures of the windmills, etc.

But it's far from overrun with tourists.

It's vast, empty plains and very, very beaut and very evocative of Cervantes great novel.

So that's one part of Spain you can go to to get rid of the crowds.

What about San Lucar?

Tell us why people go to that

famous City San Lucar is one of my absolute favourites and that's within what's called the sherry triangle, where the famous sherry wine comes from, Jereth being the capital and Saint Lucar is just down the road by the seaside.

And by being by the seas is, is really its claim to fame because manzanilla sherry comes from San Lucar and because they age it in bodegas that are by the sea and wafted by the Atlantic air, it has a kind of distinctive salty tang which makes it really, really popular.

It's actually, it's actually more popular in Spain than the fino sherry that comes from Jerez.

And it is a wonderful place because you are, you are by the seaside and you're also across the river from the Donyana nature reserve.

So you might see flamingos flying around and so on, and seafood that comes from the estuary, particularly prawns.

There's a sort of local obsession with that.

So you can go on a tasting tour of the historic bodegas in town.

And they're absolutely beautiful and sort of dripping with, with history and tradition.

And then like, is that like a.

Before we leave that.

Is that like a typical wine tour where they go through and they show you the process of how you make the wine.

And will those be in English so people can understand?

Yes, most of them have tours in English.

The one that I like best is La Gitana.

That particular house has a wonderful tour where you can go in the evening, you can have a nighttime tour of the bodega and they take you around the, the wine cellars, which are very, very traditional, I think, I think La Gitana is actually the oldest one in, in town, may even be the oldest one one in Spain.

And it's a beautiful scene.

And as you, as you wander among the, the barrels, they, they give you glasses of sherry to, to taste.

It is, it's.

It's a glorious experience.

And then of course for, in terms of, of lunch or dinner, it's, it's a beautiful place to, to the sort of row of restaurants which line the riverside looking over onto the, the national park.

My favorite one there is called Casa Bigote, which is.

It's clearly the locals favorite.

It's very interesting because what happens is at lunchtime they start to fill up and you can wander down by the riverside and some of the restaurants are kind of empty or quiet and Casabigote is always busy so you do need to get there early.

But it's not very many tourists.

I mean mainly Spanish people there.

It's A popular place for Spanish holiday makers.

And what you do is you.

You.

You gaze across the river, you eat platefuls of prawns, you know, salty prawns scattered with salt on top, and you drink Manthania sherry straight from the.

The barrel.

I mean, it really is.

It's a glorious thing to do.

Lovely.

And then afterwards, you can take a little ferry trip across to the beach of the Donyana reserve and have a wander on the beach.

And very often there'll be very, very few people there, maybe a few fishermen walking back with their catch, but actually not very many people at all.

So.

Beautiful place to be.

Yeah, that sounds amazing.

All right.

You were talking about great restaurants.

Many years ago, I did a bike tour through the air.

We started in Girona and we went to the different hill towns of that region, which is.

Oh, my goodness, Costa Brava.

The Costa Brava.

And I foolishly went driving up to Casa de Can Roca, which is owned by the Roca brothers, and I said, I wonder if you might have any availability tonight?

And they just looked at me aghast, because this is considered one of the best restaurants on the planet.

But in the book, you highlighted the fact that, okay, you're probably not going to get in there still, but the brothers that run this place have been incredibly prolific in the town of Girona, and so you can try their food.

So talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, Girona, I think, is a very interesting place to go, particularly if you're concerned about over tourism in Barcelona.

Girona, but it's not far from Barcelona.

It's actually very easy to fly to if you're.

If you're coming from London, for example, but it's much more.

It's on a much more manageable scale than Barcelona.

Beautiful medieval buildings, easy to wander around.

But, yes, the standout thing is the food.

So Celler de Canroca has, I think, twice been voted the world's greatest best restaurant.

Waiting list is about a year to dine there.

But the Rocker brothers, there's three Rocker brothers and they're incredibly energetic.

They have so many enterprises on the go in the tarn, and they offer food and drink and accommodation options kind of across the range.

So the last time we were there, we stayed in a place called Esperit do Rocco, which.

A spirit of Rocco.

And it's quite a new place.

It's a new hotel built on a ruined fortress just outside the town.

They have a beautiful restaurant there.

They have an incredible wine center where they play Classical music 24 hours a day because the wine appreciates it, apparently.

And it's the most beautiful setting and it's, you know, it's expensive.

But they also have very accessible places in the town.

They have a lovely wine bar called Vi vii.

Vi in Catalan means wine and vii means seven.

And it's at number seven.

And it's just like a traditional wine bar.

They sell really, really good tapas, lovely wine.

They do the cannelloni that they also serve on the menu at Cellar de Canrocca.

So you can taste a little bit of the Canrocca magic, but it's very reasonably priced and very enjoyable.

They also have a wonderful ice cream parlor in town.

And they have, unbelievably, they have a hotel within a chocolate factory, a working chocolate factory.

And the hot chocolate they serve for breakfast has to be tasted to be believed.

It's beautiful.

Oh my goodness.

So you fall asleep to the aroma of chocolate.

You do, you do.

You could have a nighttime chocolate flavored gin and tonic on their roof terrace.

Oh my goodness, that's fascinating.

Well, speaking of food, you have also written about olive oil in Ronda.

Where is Ronda?

And tell us about that experience.

Yes, well, I mean, Ronda is a popular tourist destination and with good reason because the setting of Ronda is absolutely extraordinary.

It's set on a gorge on either side of a very dramatic gorge with a very high bridge.

And it's a, it's a beautiful and fascinating place.

It has the oldest bullring in, in Spain.

It's well worth your time.

But you mentioned the, the, the olive oil museum, which is a, a few miles outside, maybe 15 minutes by by car outside town, set in the middle of the olive groves.

And it is an extraordinary site because it's a, it's an ultra modern cube of red concrete with a bull, a huge bull's horn in, in steel, in kind of weathered steel sticking out the, out of the side of it.

It's very incongruous.

It looks as if it's been plonked from outer space in the middle of the olive groves.

But it's designed by Philippe Stark, the famous industrial designer who was asked to design a kind of tribute to olive oil and also to the history of Ronda.

And it's a very, very striking and impressive building.

But the, the olive oil tour, they call it Olio tourism.

I wasn't aware of the phrase Olio tourism before, but interesting.

Yeah, it's an olive oil experience where they take you around the olive groves and explain how they produce the olive oil.

You have the museum with the history of olive oil and how it's done, then you have this extraordinary building and some incredible views of the, of the countryside and so on.

And then at the end of it they take you to, to taste olive oil very much in the same way that you might taste wine.

They give you three different olive oils and you have, you have artisanal bread to try it with.

And then they, you know, they say this one's more fruity and this one's more sharp and, and so on and it's, it's a, it's a beautiful experience.

And again and you need to, you need to book ahead but not busy, you know, not, not overwhelmed by tourists.

And if you're in the middle of

so a good escape from Ronda, I guess Ronda proper I think if you're,

if you're spending time in busy Ronda taking an afternoon off to go and taste olive oil makes a lot of

sense right now Would Cuenca be a place that is over touristed or not, would you say?

Absolutely not.

I mean Cuenca is one of my absolute favourites.

And again not far from Madrid.

It's probably about an hour by train from Madrid, very easy to get to.

And again a very fascinating place, not unlike Ronda actually because it was an old fortress town from, from a thousand years ago or more built onto very precipitous rocks.

It's effectively built on the side of a cliff in a very dramatic gorge.

And what it's most famous for is the hanging houses, the so called hanging houses, casas colgadas, which were built into the rock side about 500 years ago.

And they're kind of wooden, these wooden beamed houses which are cantilevered into the, into the rock side.

Very dramatic and very, very beautiful.

But what makes the whole thing even more fabulous is that after the Spanish Civil War the town kind of fell into disuse.

So it's a, it's an exquisite setting.

I mean it really is extraordinary.

You walk in and you've got this incredible dramatic, I mean quite, quite sort of angry art on the walls in

many cases because it was about the Civil War.

A lot of the art was kind of in reaction to the Franco era.

So these artists were very much sort of protest artists, quite challenging angry art on the walls.

And then you've got these views over a very dramatic gorge which descends down to the sort of bubbling water.

And then you're in a building that's 500 years old, made out of rough hewn wood.

So the whole experience is wonderful.

And then actually only in the last couple of years, there were two very famous hanging houses which, which housed the museum.

And then right next door there's a third hanging house which is now a very high end restaurant, which is called Casas Colgadas.

And there's a well known local chef called Jesus Segura, and he has opened an excellent restaurant in the third hanging house.

So you can go there for a really tremendous lunch, kind of multi course, high end lunch, which is a kind of modern take on traditional Castilian cuisine.

It's a wonderful experience.

Yeah, no, it sounds beautiful and I know it is beautiful because I was part of the team that found the photos for the books and just looking through them, trying to figure out what would really show.

It was a lovely challenge to have, as was editing the book, which I'm very, very proud of.

As I said at the start, I think it's going to be a wonderful resource for travelers.

So thank you again, Peter, for all you did.

I mean, you were probably our lead writer on the book.

You did Madrid, you did Barcelona, you did Extremadora, of course, and a number of other regions.

It was a real pleasure, I have to say.

And I just, you know, I just know I guarantee that if you go and do some of the things we've been talking about and some of the things in the book, you will have a great time.

I just, I'm very confident in that.

Yes, me too.

Me too.

Well, thank you so much, Peter, for appearing on the Fromer Travel Show.

You're very welcome.

Thank you, Pauline.

And that is it for this week's show.

I thank you so much for listening to those who live in the South Florida area.

The very first travel and adventure show is having is happening in Fort Lauderdale next weekend.

I will be one of the speakers.

So will Phil Rosenthal from Somebody Feed Phil.

So will Peter Greenberg.

So I hope you'll come to the show.

And here's a little secret.

If you use the code fromersvip online, you can get a free ticket.

So I hope to see you there.

Thank you so much for listening.

And to those who are traveling, may I wish you a hearty bon voyage.

Sour candy on the table Lazy afternoons in your sweatpants Watching cable well, it feels so far away all the channels seem the same.

Trying to remember all the songs we like to play.

Cause those lazy afternoons don't come so frequently these days oh, it's been so long and I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with your sour candy in the boat house on the lake oh, but I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it takes.

I can't get you off of my mind Looking out the window but we spend so much of our time Cause I miss the way it felt

But

I guess you can't control those damn cards we're down, babe I know the both of us are happy when we're free but would it be so hard to find your freedom here with me?

Oh, it's been so long and I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with your sour candy in the boat house on the lake But I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it takes.