I’m not sure, but she has some impressive free guides to some of the biggest cities and regions in Spain. They are full of tips and links to useful resources, definitely worth checking out if you are heading to Spain soon. (Link found in the forums, thanks guys!)
Imagine walking through the high beech woodlands of the Pyrenees… across wild poppy fields in Spain’s empty plains… spending the night in medieval buildings… tramping through Galicia’s verdant forests… 50,000 people a year take on the Camino de Santiago, wouldn’t you like to have a go? We’ve put together a mamoth Camino FAQ to help you get your bearings…
What is it?
The Santiago Way, or Camino de Santiago, is an ancient pilgrimage route that crosses Northern Spain to end in Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia. The most popular route is the Camino Frances, which covers around 800 kilometers, starting in the Pyrenees (Saint Jean de Pied de Port in France, and Roncesvalles or Jaca in Spain), and crossing Spain’s high Meseta plains – all in all around a 4 week walk.
i found i was pregnant which was a bit of a shock, however [my partner] and i went to the local doctor for advice (being the 4th child) and we were sent to the abortion clinic this was not a language difficulty (my husband is fluent in Spanish). the abortion clinic was about to do the procedure when they realised this was not what we asked for, we merely wanted normal pregnancy tests to ascertain the baby’s health
What greater expression of affection can there be than a present of a whacking great leg of ham? I’m obviously in the mother-in-law’s good books these days! This is actually a paletilla de jamon iberico, the front leg of an acorn fed Iberian boar, that spent some time wondering around the woods and fields of Guijuelo, near Salamanca, before ending up in our kitchen. The rear leg, or jamon, is larger, and lasts too long for our tastes – the two months of constant ham eating it will take to get through our paletilla is plenty for us!
Buying a ham in Spain: there are three places you are almost guaranteed to get a good leg of ham in Spain. The first is in the small town of Guijuelo (map), just south of Salamanca, where the main street has one shop after another full of exquisite hams, chorizos, lomos – everything any self-respecting carnivore could want from a pig! Combine your ham buying mission with a drive from Salamanca down to Extremadura, taking in the wild Sierra de la Peña Francesa on the way if you can.
The second name on the tip of every hamophiles tounge is Jabugo (map), a tiny town in the Sierra de Aracena, about 100 kilometres north of Huelva. Once again the quiet Andaluz town is dominated by jamon-sellers, including the famous 5J brand. Here, however, the ham is something of a footnote to the stunning scenery of the surrounding Sierra. Cork forests, wild flowers, fields of grazing fighting bulls – the highlight is the white hilltop town of Almonaster La Real (map), with its 10th Century Moorish mosque. N.B. the ham from Jabugo has a slightly stronger taste than that from Guijuelo.
Perhaps the best place to pick up a ham in big towns like Madrid and Barcelona is El Corte Ingles superstore. There’s usually a food section in the basement of the bigger branches, where they will guarentee you a decent-tasting leg of ham and even peel the first layers of tough skin away for you (I am not usually a fan of El Corte Ingles, but apparently they will replace hams that are too salty/not great quality). If you are travelling by air later, ask about vacuum packing before you make a purchase, and remember that some countries won’t let you bring ham through customs. Pick up a jamonero from the kitchen department while you are there, it’s the big wooden vice used to hold the ham in place while cutting.
A word on price: the paletilla in the photo above cost around 100 euros (weighing in at 5 kilos) from El Corte Ingles, it should be a little cheaper at source. The jamon (back leg) is more expensive per kilo, as there is a greater proportion of meat to bone in the overall weight. Finally, jamon de bellota (only fed on acorns in the final months before slaughter) is more expensive, and far nicer, than jamon de recebo (where the pigs also eat commercial feed in the final months).
For more on ham in Spanish see como cortar un jamon and the Spanish wikipedia. Any more questions on ham?
A quick trip down memory lane for Penelope Cruz fans… Here she is starring in a Mecano pop video before she became famous on the big screen. She started to go out with the singer after the video was made and, still great friends today, they recently sat together at the Goya awards ceremony. Apologies to all those who couldn’t care less about Penelope Cruz, but you may enjoy Mecano – they were huge in Spain in the late 80s/early 90s 🙂
One of the jewels of this coast is on Las Islas Cies, a 40-minute boat trip from the pretty town of Baiona. Once a pirates’ haunt, Cies is now an uninhabited and pristine national park, open to the public only in summer. Galegos come here to spend long, lazy summer days on the Praia das Rodas, a perfect crescent of soft, pale sand backed by small dunes sheltering a calm lagoon of crystal-clear sea.
[Photos of the beach here]. Amazingly this was one of the worst affected areas in the 2002 Prestige disaster, when a tanker sank in Galician waters releasing thousands of gallons of crude oil onto the coastline of Northern Spain. The clean up operation, which involved the army and hoards of volunteers scraping oil from rocks by hand for moths on end, was obviously a resounding success.
Photo above, of the clean up, courtesy of wikipedia.
This sounds like a nice way of life:
I moved to the beautiful mountainside town of Cazorla in an oft-missed corner of Andalucía in September, 1999. I currently dedicate myself to the cultivation of 1500 olive trees and to investing in the Spanish stock market.
From Ibex Salad (found in an NFS comment)
Yesterday saw the start of the trial of those accused for the bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid on March 11th 2004. The chief culprits face extreme sentences, including a possible 38,656 years for Rabei Osman el Sayed, aka “Mohamed the Egyptian”, who is accused of masterminding the attacks, and 38,670 years for Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras, the Asturian miner accused of selling 200 kilos of explosives to those that carried them out.
There is more at stake here than simple justice. The Partido Popular claimed at the time that ETA was responsible for the attacks, and along with El Mundo newspaper, continue to cast doubt on the veracity of forensic findings that show the explosive used to be Goma 2 Eco, the same explosive stolen by the above mentioned miner in Asturias and allegedly sold to those currently on trial. The matter of the explosives has become central to the whole trial, with conspiracy theorists and El Mundo claiming that that there is reasonable doubt that Goma 2 Eco was in fact involved, which theoretically still leaves room for an ETA (or other) connection in the whole complicated puzzle. The results of the trial could have a serious affect on the integrity of both the newspaper and the PP.
Those who jump on either side of the Goma 2 Eco fence face harsh criticism, or worse. Pilar Manjon, Presisident of the Association of those affected by the March 11th bombings, lost her 20 year old son in the attacks. For openly criticising the El Mundo theories, and the Partido Popular and their “playgound politics”, this emotionally devastated woman has received death threats and now has to live with a permanent bodyguard.
For thorough coverage of the most important trial in Spain’s recent history, the main players, and the whole Goma 2 Eco debacle, see the appropriately named blog “Playing Chess with the Dead”.
Erika Ortiz, sister of Leticia Ortiz, future queen of Spain, has been found dead in the Madrid flat where she lived, the former home of Leticia. She was 31 years old. No one yet knows how this happened. More at elmundo.es, including thoughts on an unhappy past year (the Spanish media is going to go absolutely crazy over this tragic event, no matter what the cause of death.)
Another great shot from Greg Gladman, of one of the towers of Granada’s Alhambra Palace, framed in the window of the Torre de la Vela, wins January’s pic of the month from the NFS Flickr Pool. Take a look at the rest of his photos from a recent trip around Spain – great photogrpahy!
Notes from Spain by Ben Curtis 
