Page:A Handbook for Travellers in Spain - Vol 1.djvu/33

Rh Sea-bathing, during the summer and autumn months, is very enjoyable on the N.W. coasts of Spain. The most fashionable sea-side resort is St. Sebastian, which is frequented by the best Madrid society. El Sardinero, near Santander, is also much resorted to. Zarauz, Deva, and Saturraran are more suited to quiet people who wish for economy.

Gijon is the most fashionable sea-bathing locality of Asturias; but at the hamlets on the coast, Luanco, Luarca, &c., the bathing is very pleasant, the prices charged for lodgings most moderate, providing an agreement is made; the food, salmon, milk, and excellent fruits and vegetables most abundant; and the artist or student will find great enjoyment in the grand scenery and picturesque people.

On the shores of the Mediterranean there are numerous bathing establishments—at Barcelona, Arenys del Mar, a beautiful spot, Alicante, Valencia, Malaga, and Cadiz. The water of the Mediterranean is very different in temperature and chemical properties to that of the Atlantic. For some constitutions these baths are highly recommended, but the heat at those localities is so intense that autumn should be chosen. Bathing machines are not generally used in Spain, one of the few exceptions being at Las Arenas, near Bilbao; thatched huts, or albercas, supply their place. Men and women bathe separately in these albercas.

Although the ravages of war, and the acts of the Gotho-Spaniards themselves, have destroyed and disfigured many of the most interesting relics of the Moor—yet the remains of that elegant, industrious, and enlightened people are still, both in number and importance, quite unequalled in Europe: they will long continue to furnish subjects of interest and curiosity to travellers in the Peninsula.

Before pointing out objects to be observed in Spain, it may be as well to mention what is not to be seen, as there is no worse loss of time than finding this out oneself, after weary chase and wasted hours; and first let us advise the mere Idler and Man of Pleasure to go rather to Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Florence, or Rome, than to Madrid and Spain, for Iberia is not a land of fleshly comforts, or of social sensual civilization. ''Oh! dura tellus Iberiæ''—God there sends the meat, and the evil one cooks. Then again, those who expect to find well-garnished arsenals, libraries provided with the popular literature of the day, restaurants, charitable or literary institutions, polytechnic galleries, pale-ale breweries, and similar appliances and appurtenances of a high state of commercial civilization, had better stay at home. Life in the country towns and villages of Spain is a Bedouin Oriental existence. Madrid itself is but a dear, second-rate European capital. The maritime seaports are, however, more amusing; and the Alameda, the church show, and the bull-fight, will be best enjoyed in the Southern provinces, the land also of the song and dane, of bright suns and eyes, wholesale love-making, and of not the largest female feet in the world.

Spain may perhaps interest a political economist, as offering a fine example of errors to be avoided, and a grand field for theories and plans of future reform and amelioration. Here is a land where Nature has lavished her prodigality of soil and climate, and which man has for [Spain.—1882.]