Catalonia

Catalonia is one of Spain’s seventeen autonomous communities — a real tier of government with its own parliament, president and police force — occupying the north-eastern corner of the country. And yes: Catalan is a distinct Romance language, not a dialect of Spanish, and it is co-official across the community. Most signage, menus and public announcements appear in Catalan first, and it is the everyday language of a great many people here. Spanish is universally understood and no visitor needs Catalan, but noticing that it is a different language rather than an accent is the single thing that changes how the place reads.

Yes, and it is the best single day out of the city. The massif is a wall of rounded conglomerate pillars that rises straight off the plain — the name simply means serrated mountain — and a Benedictine abbey has occupied a ledge partway up since the middle ages. It holds the Black Madonna, the patron of Catalonia, and its boys’ choir is one of the oldest in Europe, singing on a published schedule that is worth checking against your day. Above the monastery, funiculars and marked paths reach the ridges, which is where the mountain stops being a church visit and becomes a walk.

No, and the distances are larger than most itineraries suggest. Madrid is its own autonomous community — the Community of Madrid — in the centre of the country, reached from Barcelona by high-speed train. Seville and Granada are in Andalusia, in the far south, which is a different region again with a very different history and climate. A Spanish trip that takes in Barcelona, Madrid and Seville is crossing the country twice, and it works well precisely because the high-speed network makes those legs comfortable — but they are separate stops, not excursions from one another.

No. Lisbon is the capital of Portugal, a different sovereign country on the western side of the Iberian peninsula, and it is usually reached from Spain by a short flight. Portugal has its own language, its own currency history and a quite different feel, even though both countries share the peninsula and both are in the European Union, the Schengen area and the eurozone — so one visa and one currency do cover both. Itineraries that pair Spain and Portugal are common and sensible; treating Lisbon as a Spanish city is not.

The community has a long Mediterranean coast, and it changes character sharply along its length. Immediately around Barcelona the beaches are urban and were largely created for the 1992 Olympics. South of the city the Costa Daurada is flatter and sandier. North lies the Costa Brava, whose name means rugged coast and which is exactly that — pine-backed coves, cliff paths and small harbours rather than continuous sand. Parts of it were heavily developed in the 1960s, but the northern end around Cadaqués and the Cap de Creus headland remains among the least built-up coastline in the western Mediterranean.

Two is the useful answer and three if the coast appeals. One buys Montserrat, which is the day almost everyone is gladdest of. The second buys either Girona — walls, cathedral steps and the houses over the Onyar — or a first look at the Costa Brava. A third night is better spent staying over on the coast or in Girona than adding another return trip from the city, because everything closer has already been covered. Beyond that the trip is better served by moving on to Madrid or Andalusia, which are separate legs rather than longer days.