Northern Spain’s Picos de Europa is one of the most compact mountain ranges in the world, reaching a whopping 2,650 metres in height just 20 kilometres from the coast. A marvel of geography, sure, but it also makes for scenes of extraordinary beauty. The Picos’ mountains rise steeply out of the sea, meaning views contain not just plunging gorges and perilous peaks but gleaming strips of beach and the stormy Cantabrian Sea. Within the national park are countless more scenes of beauty: the strikingly lonely Naranjo de Bulnes, age-old mountain villages Sotres and Cain, the shimmering glacial Lakes of Covadonga and the namesake in-cliff shrine and pilgrimage site that teeters over a waterfall.