North

Description

The North. A region so different from the rest of the country, so far removed from national and foreign stereotypes that every visit is a surprise. The North, with its persistent rains and mild temperatures, its forests and its patient cows. With its snow-capped mountains and rough seas. With its wild fauna, a unique redoubt in Western Europe. With its curvilinear geography and its excellent gastronomy, it is an almost mythical territory for the Spaniards themselves, who speak of "the North" without delimiting it administratively. It could be said that going to the North is a state of mind, of change, of tranquillity and peace.

In our particular division of the territory, we have called "north" everything that lies above the Way of St James (French route) up to the Cantabrian Sea. Notwithstanding the fact that the Cantabrian mountain range is the real dividing line, we wanted to include the transformation of the Castilian plains into highlands up to the foot of the mountains, which jut out many kilometres away, where the Mediterranean and Cantabrian climates mix, for these mountains, which stretch for hundreds of kilometres parallel to the sea, are, together with the sea, the cause of the humid climate that characterises the whole of the coastal range, its influence extending along the southern slope and running, in turn, through the moorlands towards the rest of the country.

In the North, several autonomous communities coexist, all of them very historical, whose people are perceived by the rest of Spaniards as strong,...

hardy and good-hearted; this is common to Basques, Asturians, Cantabrians, Leonese and Castilians, another reason to unify this Cantabrian axis, without any political bias. People from the mountains, the sea, the factories and mines abandoned after several de-industrialisation processes; active and determined people. And people who like their land and know how to enjoy it and show it off, proud of what they have and who they are.

We, you can tell, love the North. It has long been in our hearts, first the Picos de Europa, extraordinary mountains, some of the most powerful on the continent, then the forests, the cliffs, listening to the tawny owl in the oak tree next to the church, following the tracks of a wolf in the snow... so many reasons that in order to satisfy them we must return time and again, and we will never have covered them all.