The best parts of Spain are our little secrets…romantic hilltowns where Spaniards go to escape the hustle and bustle of Madrid and Barcelona. Sloping cobblestoned streets lead you to another world.

Only one hour from Madrid lies the perfect Castilian village: Pedraza de la Sierra is filled with 16th century architecture, impeccably-maintained stone mansions, cobbled streets and a castle guarding the town.

Make oft-bypassed Ubeda virtually your own. Stay in a lovely 16th c. Renaissance palace and explore one of Europe's most important collections of Renaissance architecture sited on a plateau overlooking the world's largest olive grove.

Sleep in a hotel carved from the sprawling, still-active monastery in which the Spanish language was first written in the idyllic landscape of northern Spain.

No longer our secret although still one of our favorites, Ronda dramatically straddles two sides of a monumental gorge, is chocked full of monuments and happens to contain two of Spain's best restaurants. Our guests stay in a medieval home just converted to a tiny boutique hotel.

Siguenza is a treasure the Spaniards still keep to themselves...a quiet town amidst rolling hills. The medieval castle overlooking the town is a lovely place to spend a romantic night or two. In a small village not far away is a gentleman, a well-known restorer of antiques, happy to share with you the traditional ways of his craft.

Spend a few days sampling Spain's best vintages in a walled town built upon a bluff overlooking La Rioja. Each home in this town has its private wine cellar. Legend claims that all the wine cellars connect via secret tunnels. But only its residents know for certain.

Beckoning to those really looking to get away, the Alpujarras mountains contain villages and towns where ways of life are slow to change. Isolated by geography, this region was the last stronghold of the Moors 500 years ago and even today remains a bastion of all that is traditional in a fast-changing world.

Walk - just for the fun of it - in the historic footsteps of ten centuries of pilgrims along the Camino de Santiago. In its heyday, 500,000 pilgrims would walk this road each year in hopes of salvation. Declared "the most important cultural route in Europe", the Camino is marked by abandoned Romanesque chapels, still-active monasteries and sleepy villages. It has been re-discovered in recent years by those "in the know" looking for a vanished world - a world where there is always time to chat to a neighbor or greet a traveler just passing through.

Contact Heritage Tours at 1 800 378 4555