Hidden Gems in Spain Beyond Madrid and Barcelona

Ronda, perched in the mountains of Andalusia about two hours by car or train from Malaga, is built around a gorge so dramatic that the town itself splits in two across it, joined by the Puente Nuevo, a stone bridge completed in 1793 that drops roughly a hundred metres to the El Tajo gorge below. You can walk across the bridge in a couple of minutes without realising what's beneath it, but a short path down into the gorge, or a visit to the small museum inside the bridge's old chamber, gives you the view that makes Ronda worth the detour. One of the oldest bullrings in Spain sits just a few minutes' walk from the bridge as well, for anyone interested in that side of Andalusian history.

Setenil de las Bodegas, about thirty minutes further from Ronda, takes the idea of building into the landscape to an extreme. Entire houses and restaurants here are built directly under and into rock overhangs, with the natural stone ceiling forming part of the roof itself. The main street, Calle Cuevas del Sol, runs right along the base of the rock face, and most of the restaurants built into the overhang serve the same regional Andalusian dishes you'd find elsewhere, but eating lunch under several metres of solid rock that's been there for centuries is the kind of detail that doesn't come across in a photo until you're standing in it.

Cuenca, a couple of hours east of Madrid by high-speed train, is known for its Casas Colgadas, or hanging houses, which were built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries right on the edge of the Huecar gorge, their balconies extending out over a drop with nothing but the cliff face below. One of the hanging houses now holds the Museo de Arte Abstracto Espanol, which is worth the visit on its own, but the real draw is walking across the San Pablo footbridge for the view back at the houses themselves, especially in the late afternoon when the light hits the gorge directly.

Girona, about forty minutes from Barcelona by high-speed train, gets a fraction of the day-trip crowds that Barcelona pulls despite being an easy same-day trip, and its old quarter has a genuinely different texture. The Call, Girona's medieval Jewish quarter, is one of the best-preserved in Europe, with narrow stone stairways that have been used as filming locations for international productions in recent years, drawing visitors who recognise the steps without necessarily knowing the city's own name. The cathedral steps and the colourful houses lining the Onyar River are worth the walk even without any of that context.

The Caminito del Rey, a walkway bolted into the cliff face along the Gaitanes Gorge near Malaga, was built originally in the early twentieth century for hydroelectric plant workers and fell into serious disrepair before being rebuilt and reopened to the public in 2015. It's now one of the more structured hidden gems on this list, since entry requires booking a timed slot in advance as daily visitor numbers are capped, but the walkway itself, with sections suspended directly over the gorge, offers a vantage point on the Andalusian countryside that no road or viewpoint nearby comes close to matching.