Euskadi

The landscape inland from the Costa Vasca is mountainous, green and rather beautiful, sadly marred by the industrialisation in the valleys rather like the Western Central Belt of Scotland; grim factories, warehouses, scrap yards and anonymous apartment blocks, without which of course it would not be such a prosperous region! But still, in almost every town there is an attractive plaza with at least a couple of decent places to eat and, unlike Scotland, the sun does shine quite regularly! Disappointingly for a member state of the EU, there still seems to be a simmering resentment against the peaceful incorporation of the autonomous community within Spain, and a bunch of psychopaths planting random explosive devices targeting the police, the opposition (socialist) party (wrong kind of socialists apparently!), anyone using the main roads...you know how it goes with psychopathic homicidal maniacs blowing things up in the name of freedom!