The Basque Region

The road known as ‘the mountain motorway’ swings and dips from Navarra, through the rugged Pyrenees, before it finally descends into the Bay of Biscay. It runs through a landscape of craggy peaks, pine-forests, caserios (stone farmhouses with steeply pitched roofs), Alpine-style chalets, verdant meadows and the odd cluster of cows or sheep; that is, if you can see all this, as the Basque climate is characterised by sirimiri - a persistent drizzle that becomes the landscape. This is the road that leads to Europe’s highest density of tapas bars. Your destination: San Sebastián, a 19th century resort that sweeps majestically around the bay, tucking in a fishing harbour and several hundred bars designed to transform your eating habits for ever.