Spain

With more than three thousand hours of sunlight a year, Spain’s a fairly safe bet if you’re after some warmth and sun (and that’s before factoring in the local welcome).

Whatever distractions from the sporting field float your boat, the odds are they’ve been tuned to a feverish pitch of perfection in Spain. It’s frothy mix of sun, beaches and glamorous culture has been a draw for generations of travellers. Add to that incredible architecture, two of the best football clubs in Europe, and one of the world’s great art collections hanging in Madrid’s Prado museum.

And then there’s tapas, paella and the all important jamon. From pricey acorn-fed jamon Iberico de bellota to the plethora of local pig products, it’s easy to be swayed by the gastronomic distractions with which Spain is stuffed. They may be the world’s third largest exporter of wine, fruit and veg, but there’s no shortage of produce to power a cuisine that is vying for its place at the world’s top table. Of course you’ll have to wait – lunch is from two and dinner is served sometime after ten, leaving plenty of time for exploring the local nightlife.

Occupying most of the Iberian Peninsula, Spain is the second largest country in Europe after France, and with that size comes a reasonable degree of diversity in climate. Predominantly temperate Mediterranean with dry summers and constant winter temperatures, geography dictates local climatic variation.

In the mountains (and Spain has lots of them with the Sierra Nevada, Pyrenees, Iberian, Central and Cantabrian mountains), the weather’s a bit rougher and snow’s a feature of life from early winter into late spring. The uplands of the high plateau (basically the bits of Spain that are neither coast nor mountain) have hot summers and cold winters,  and the further north on the plateau you go, the cooler and wetter the weather on the whole. On the coast, the climate can vary from arid to positively subtropical in humidity.