Transfers in Green Spain

Spaniards call the north of the country Green Spain, for a climate closer to the Atlantic than the Mediterranean. It is cloudier and cooler here than in the south, but there is no exhausting summer heat, and the coasts of the Basque Country, Asturias and Galicia are considered among the most beautiful in Spain.

We are opening routes here from four airports. Bilbao is the largest: twelve minutes to the city centre, a little over an hour to San Sebastian. San Sebastian has its own airport too, but it is small and sits right on the French border, twenty minutes from the centre.

Asturias is served by one airport for two cities: forty minutes to Oviedo, a little over half an hour to Gijon. Galicia has Santiago Airport, twenty minutes from Santiago de Compostela itself.

Roads in the north are mountainous and winding, and journey times are noticeably longer than the map distance suggests. We calculate them along the real route, not as the crow flies.

The northern airports are small with a single arrivals hall, and finding a driver with a name sign here is easier than in Barcelona or Madrid. An hour of free waiting is included in the price and we track the flight number ourselves.

If you plan several towns in a day - Oviedo and Gijon, say, or the coast around San Sebastian - a car with a driver by the hour works better than booking separate transfers. The minimum is three hours.