What’s the one thing you would really like to know about traveling in Spain? Ask us in the Notes from Spain forums! Marina and I have traveled far and wide in this wonderful country, and the other forum members have covered much more ground besides. So if there’s one question (or as many as you like, in fact) that you’d really like to ask about travel in Spain: register in the forums and ask away!
(P.S. the same goes for learning Spanish and Spanish cuisine – we’d love to help!)
So, Pamplona’s annual bull running extravaganza is into day 2. All the fuss started with Hemmigway’s book, Fiesta/The Sun Also Rises, begins every year with an explosion of fireworks and ecstatic crowds (the chupinazo), and revolves around the daily encierro (running of the bulls), which often ends in serious injury, or even death, for an unfortunate foreigner.
Have you been? Is it the party of the century, the greatest of Spanish lunacies, or just one big excuse for getting very drunk? I suspect that the answer is all three roled into one!
I went four years ago, towards the end of the week’s fiestas, and found a city ravaged by drunken partying – very messy, empty bottles of drink all over the streets, young men wandering around like dazed, permanently hung over shadows of their former selves. So, NFS travel advice: aim to get there at the beginning of the week (starting July 7th) when the city’s energy levels are still at 100%!
It gets even better than my Flickr/Map post below. Andrew left a comment pointing to Wikimapia, which is slowly annotating the entire world. Isn’t the internet great these days? Madrid is already coming on nicely – browse/drag yourself around the image above – or see the whole map on-line: trip to Valencia anyone?
Click though to Flickr to see the enlarged version of this photo, then hover over it with the mouse to see the added notes. Did I miss anything? Is there somewhere in Spain you could annotate in a similar way? Any additions to the NFS Flickr group are very welcome!
Huge kudos is the prize at stake for anyone that can answer all 4 questions in the forums correctly (they aren’t all about Madrid!)
Here’s a taster: Where is the bar pictured above? Clue: it is located in a central Madrid square that has only just re-opened after a complete refurbishment designed, in part, to drive the drunks away from the Plaza. Flower stalls are soon to appear in the open pedestrian spaces.
A while ago in the forums I asked you to name the first three things that come into your head when you think of Spain. Thinking about it today, a new question sprang to mind, and possibly the one I really meant to ask originally:
What is it that draws you to Spain? What do you like so much about the country?
I think I’m interested in exploring the essence of Spain in the eyes of others, in your eyes to be precise. Please comment here, or better still, in this post in the forums.
Greg Gladman has posted a great Flickr set that really captures the essence of Santiago de Compostella. The image of the wheelchair-bound woman arriving at the cathedral is particularly striking.
Here’s a quick tip for a tapas-grazing evening in Spain. Don’t order your food with your very first drinks in a bar. In many bars your beers/wine will arrive with a free tapa, but if you ordered food at the same time, the tapa gets left behind the bar. So, wait and see what you are given for free, then order something from the menu.
The biggest exceptions to this are Granada and San Sebastian. In Granada you get so much free food with your drinks that you simply won’t need to order any food all night! In fact, after your fourth drink you’ll be pleading with the waiter to keep his food behind the bar and leave your bulging waistline in peace!
In San Sebastian it’s a different story. Here the Pinxos (tapas) are exquisite, practically art-forms, and it’s very unlikely they’ll be giving these away for free. So, take what you like off the bar top, and pay up at the end. (Photo: pinxos bar in San Sebastian).
Look at the colour of that earth! This was taken in the Ribera del Duero region, but you see striking soil colours all over Spain, especially the rusty reds you find on the way down to Valencia from Madrid. Thanks to Cata Vino for posting the image (you may want to check out his great site on Spanish wine too.)
Honourable mentions should also go to Enrique NYC for his Semana Santa pics and Pau.cc for his panoramics (click through to his site to see them move – very cool!) There were many more excellent images posted this month, but I can’t choose all of them!
Keep ’em coming, the NFS Flickr group is really getting going!
Marina has a birthday, Notes from Spain celebrates its first birthday – sounds like an excellent excuse for a trip to Ibiza!
Notes from Spain by Ben Curtis 