The Guardian’s Spain Special shows that the country still packs a punch

The beauty and diversity of Spain has the capacity to constantly surprise you

Despite its undoubted good intentions and excellent journalism over the past decade, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper receives a fair amount of stick for being a little too, well, full of itself.

Smugly ploughing its own righteous furrow, The Guardian’s editorials, writers, agendas and commentators often descend into unintentional parody of what many people assume ‘left-leaning’ individuals to be: quinoa-eating, sandal-wearing, hemp-clothed do-gooders who holiday in undiscovered Montenegran villages and name their children Mungo and Moppy.

So it was with surprise this weekend when I flicked on my laptop and automatically clicked on to The Guardian’s website (they have great sports coverage, you see) to be met with a Spain Special splashed across its travel pages. Now, Spain being a country in Europe and The Guardian being a national newspaper in the UK, this shouldn’t have been so surprising…

But what struck me most was the upbeat tone, the passion, the knowledge and the evident care The Guardian had gone to in order to present Spain as a destination of choice for their image-conscious readership. Normally, the travel section of the newspaper’s website is awash with fantastically expensive cruises around the Norwegian fjords, or grape picking in Provence, or elephant trekking in Cambodia. They don’t do populism.

Yet here it is in all its glory. The Top Ten self-catering holidays in Spain; a Holiday Guide to Zaragoza; Malaga: the Costa del Dinner, and many more tidbits of informative articles on enjoying a visit to Spain. Perhaps this Spain special was timed to coincide with the all-Spanish Champions League final last weekend, or was written in anticipation of yet another summer triumph for Spain’s all-conquering football team at next month’s World Cup in Brazil.

Whatever prompted such a spread, it was refreshing to see a serious newspaper treat Spain with the respect and gushing praise that it deserves, rather than sneering at a country that has had its problems – many self-inflicted – but is most certainly on the up.

So, if you have a spare hour or two this week and fancy reading some well-written accounts of Spanish life, cuisine, beaches, history, cities and people, I can well recommend The Guardian’s Spain Special… just so long as you promise to come straight back to VIVA for more updates on life in Spain.

After all, we’re the ones living the dream daily, so – despite The Guardian’s best efforts – we still know what’s best!