Skigebieden in Spain

Spanish skiing splits between the Pyrenees in the north and the Sierra Nevada in the far south, and the two could hardly be more different. Baqueira Beret in the Val d'Aran is the country's serious resort: around 160 km of piste, north facing terrain that holds snow, and a long standing association with the Spanish royal family that helped make it fashionable. Formigal and Cerler in Aragón are the other Pyrenean options of scale, with Formigal's four linked valleys catching Atlantic snow.

Sierra Nevada, above Granada, is the highest ski area in western Europe outside the Alps, topping out at around 3,300 m on the Veleta, and the southernmost significant resort on the continent. Skiing there is a strange and enjoyable proposition: you can see the Mediterranean and, on a clear day, the Rif mountains of Morocco from the top lifts, and the season regularly runs into May because of the altitude despite the latitude.

The Spanish approach to a ski day is late and social. Lifts are quiet before ten, lunch is long, and the resorts are busiest at weekends and during Semana Santa. Non ski options are strong: snowshoeing and ski touring in the Val d'Aran and Ordesa, the thermal baths at Caldes de Boí and Panticosa, and in the south the combination of a morning on the Veleta and an afternoon in the Alhambra, an hour's drive away, that no other ski destination in Europe can offer.

Eating is the reason a lot of people go back. In the Pyrenees, olla aranesa, a rich Val d'Aran soup with meat, vegetables and pasta, and civet de jabalí, wild boar stewed in red wine, are the mountain dishes. Trinxat, cabbage and potato fried with bacon, crosses the border from Andorra. Aragonese lamb chops grilled over vine cuttings, migas and ternasco roast lamb carry the Formigal and Cerler side.

In the Sierra Nevada, the food is Andalusian: jamón from Trevélez in the Alpujarras, cured at altitude and among the best in Spain, plato alpujarreño with fried eggs, potatoes and blood sausage, and tapas that still arrive free with a drink in Granada. Migas and gachas are the traditional cold weather peasant dishes and turn up on winter menus.

Wine is the strength: Somontano from the Aragonese foothills, Rioja and Navarra within easy reach of the Pyrenees, and in the south the sherries and the local Alpujarra wines. Cava is drunk casually rather than as a celebration. Après ski runs late in the Spanish way, with the Moët terrace at Baqueira and the Pas de la Casa style bars at Formigal, but dinner at ten and a night that finishes at three is more the pattern than a three o'clock umbrella bar.

Sierra Nevada hosted the Alpine World Ski Championships in 1996, having been awarded the 1995 edition and forced to postpone by a snowless winter, which remains a cautionary tale about southern latitude skiing. It has since become a regular host for freestyle and snowboard World Championships, and the 2017 event brought significant investment.

Baqueira Beret opened in 1964 and grew under the patronage of King Juan Carlos and the Spanish royal family, whose regular holidays there shaped the resort's clientele and reputation. The Val d'Aran itself is culturally distinct, with Aranese, a variety of Occitan, holding official status alongside Catalan and Spanish, and a Romanesque church heritage that includes the UNESCO listed churches of the Vall de Boí over the ridge.

Spain's competitive skiing history is thinner than its Alpine neighbours, with Francisco Fernández Ochoa's slalom gold at Sapporo in 1972 standing as the landmark result and still the country's only alpine skiing Olympic gold. His sister Blanca Fernández Ochoa won bronze in slalom at Albertville in 1992. Barcelona and the Pyrenees have repeatedly explored joint Winter Olympic bids without one yet reaching the line.