Explore a timeless corner of Spain by bike

Spain's paradors – state-run, reasonably priced hotels occupying magnificent historic buildings – are a marvel, says Oliver Smith in the Financial Times. On a cycling tour through La Mancha and Extremadura arranged by the tour operator Macs Adventure, I travelled between three of them, taking "a dawdling route through the back-country", far from the Spain of mass tourism (outside the paradors, I only saw a dozen other foreign visitors each day), and close to "the ghosts of this country's past". From the arid plains of La Mancha to the peaks of the Sierra de Gredos, the landscape was beautiful, and I found time for regular swims in mountain rivers and pools.

My three-night trip offered a taste of Macs Adventure's full seven-night journey, which takes in five paradors and two other historic hotels on the way to the walled city of Cáceres. Both itineraries include daily luggage transfers and begin at Oropesa, two hours by train west of Madrid. The village's 15th century palace, which became Spain's first parador in 1930, is a dream of Moorish towers and wrought-iron balconies around which swifts flit and swoop in the evenings. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V once stayed here, as he also did at the next parador I visited, the Castle of Jarandilla, a more "muscular" fortress hemmed with orange trees. Having grown tired of power, Charles retreated to the Sierra de Gredos in 1556, living out his last two years at the monastery of Yuste. His room there – still perfectly preserved – is "small and shadowy", with a view from his deathbed to the altar of the adjoining chapel.

I swam alone among little fish by the medieval Bridge of Cuartos, and picnicked on Manchego cheese in the porches of ancient churches. My final parador, the monastery of Plasencia, was the grandest; and beyond that, I ventured into the national park of Monfragüe, a mountainous wilderness home to lynx and golden eagles.

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The seven-night trip costs from £1,150, excluding flights (macsadventure.com). Bike hire costs from £132