Everything on our doorstep

When I arrived in Catalonia in 1990, my stay in the country was supposed to be short. It was also supposed to be just the first stop in a world tour that would satiate the curiosity of youth and turn me into a man of the world. It is now getting on for 30 years and I still haven’t seen Florence, or Moscow, or Singapore. I sometimes think of all those mountains I never climbed, those beaches I never laid on, those museums I never visited. As a species we evolved as nomads and so the desire to keep moving and find new places is part of our DNA. I sometimes wonder why someone would struggle to pay for a luxury car, or fork out a fortune on an expensive painting. However, the fact that people are willing to invest a good chunk of their earnings on visiting a place they have never been to simply because they have never been there sort of makes sense. We are programmed to explore.

I, too, have spent plenty of money on travelling since then, and have been fortunate enough to visit some half a dozen countries on my original list. However, with a family, a mortgage, work, and so on, the chances that I will one day stuff a few clothes and my passport into a backpack and take off are just about zero. Yet, the nomad in me will not be quietened, and somehow still finds a way to express itself. For me, at my age, it is my group of motorbiking friends. All around 50, all fathers and husbands, all continually busy and working full time, we nevertheless manage to find a few weekends every year to fire up our bikes and get away from it all. And, with only a couple of nights of leave, Catalonia has become our playground.

What this country has to offer the traveller never ceases to amaze me. From snow-topped mountains to sun-drenched beaches, wineries, castles, museums, forest of pine and oak, glistening wetlands and bustling cities, arid plains and waterfalls, medieval monasteries and vineyards, luxury restaurants and spas, village festivals and wildlife sanctuaries, ancient remains, hunting, skiing, galleries and the simple pleasure of a cold beer in a square.

I would never discourage anyone from giving in to their wanderlust, and I too intend to catch a few more planes to see what the world has to offer before I am done. However, as the itineraries we offer this month (pages 20-31) show, Catalonia may be a small country but has such a wealth of varied sights and experiences to offer the visitor that it fully deserves its status as one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.