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Marina and I spent the weekend in Galicia attending a wedding. While the priest delivers the sermon a villager observes from a side chapel. More tomorrow in a podcast from our trip. Photo by Ben.
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Top 5 reasons to vist Murcia
As part of our continuing Spain Top 5 series, I asked Murcia-based Matthew Bennett from The Big Chorizo (which covers news, comment and opinion about Spain and Spanish) to come up with 5 great reasons to visit this often overlooked corner of Spain. Is there more to Murcia than empty lunar landscapes and gated golf towns? Over to Matthew:
Ben asked me to write about the top 5 places and things to do here in Murcia. There are loads more but these would be the top 5 for me right now. If you’re ever down this way, check them out:
1. ZM Nightclub
On the beach at the beginning of La Manga: candles in the sand, outdoor dancefloors, bowls of fruit on the tables to relax away the alchohol, refresh tired bones and watch the sun come up with your friends.
2. Bando de la Huerta
On the first Tuesday after Easter, the biggest traditional Murcian fiesta of the year – half a million Murcians get dressed up in local costumes and start drinking promptly sometime before noon – nobody I’ve met has ever seen the procession which is supposed to be the centrepiece and the party ends the following day around dawn.
3. Easter Week
Semana Santa, both in Murcia city and in Cartagena down the road, is spectacular, whether or not you’re the least bit religious. The solemn, splendid, military-style religious processions in Cartagena contrast with the more lively ones in Murcia where the pilgrims dish out sweets for the kids. My favourite procession is Holy Thursday here in Murcia where the procession is a silent, darkened one because that’s the night Jesus was killed.
4. Calblanque Beach
If you turn right off the La Manga road just before you reach Cabo de Palos, instead of following the road into La Manga, you will completely miss all the tourist beaches, golf villas and throngs of people in the Mar Menor to find Calblanque: deserted natural beaches at the end of a (purposefully, I think) winding dirt track.
5. Mar de Músicas
Every July in Cartagena, music from around the world (this year South Africa was the special guest country) resonates around this ancient seafaring city and, especially in the Parque de las Torres amphitheatre high-up on the hill overlooking the port, takes your breath away as you sip a cool copa to escape the suffocating summer heat.
Image: Two friends at the Bando de la Huerta fiestas, by Matthew Bennett
Win a Notes from Spain T-Shirt! Got a list of your own? Enter the competition in the forum! (Forum registration necessary).
Spain Bloggers: got a blog or website on Spain and want to add to the Top 5’s featured on Notes from Spain? Contact me with original list ideas!
Le Cool is not only the name of a very cool guide book to Barcelona, but also a beautifully-designed, weekly newsletter on the (coolest) events in Barcelona and Madrid.
Sign up via their site if you are heading to either of these cities soon, and you’ll receive up-to-date info on the latest concerts, exhibitions, cinemas, festivals, and ice creams.
As part of a series I’ll be running this summer with help from Spain’s best writers and bloggers, I’d like to start with the Top 5 places I’d rather be in Spain right now (considering it’s too hot to venture outside here in Madrid!)
1. Following a long-distance footpath in the Pyrenees
Years ago I tried to do the GR-11, which crosses the mountains from Catalonia to the Basque country, coast to coast. It nearly killed me and after just 3 days I went back to Madrid for the car. But I’ve never known such incredible vistas and solitary valleys, and I’d love to try it again…
2. Playa de Andrin, near Llanes, Asturias
I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again: foraging goats on steep, fern-covered cliffs, cool wet sand, crystalline waters, cider and a bocadillo in the bar on the hill for lunch… forget the costas, this is a real beach.
3. A Fino Bar in Malaga
Any Fino bar will do, really, just knowing that I am in one of the Andalucia’s most lively cities and that there is glass of cool fino in my hand would make my day. Later I’d take a walk around the old town and finish up with grilled sardines on the admittedly not-so-attractive beach.
4. Strolling along Gros beach
San Sebastian is the most attractive combination of surf, sand and city in Europe. Forget famous La Concha beach, always packed, and check out Gros, full of beautiful people and great waves, and just 5 minutes walk from the old town: Pintxo heaven, the classiest tapas in Spain.
5. Driving across the central plains on my Vespa
In any direction, me and the Meseta, not in any kind of a hurry, and no need to be back for a week.
Image: Fino in Malaga, by Ben.
“One in five Britons will spend some part of their holidays this year in Spain. Many of them – especially those in their forties, fifties or sixties – will be trying to decide whether to move there permanently. There are now so many Britons in Spain – more than a million, according to some estimates – that some towns have almost become English-speaking.” From The Observer.
Will the last one out of the UK please turn off the lights!?
In recent weeks I have been keeping an eye on El Mundo’s ‘Fotoverano’ feature, where readers upload their holiday snaps, thinking that it would provide an interesting sociological picture of today’s Spain: instead all we get is loads of photos of kids (maybe it amounts to the same thing!)
Much more interesting then is the 20 Minutos feature on readers’ favourite Spanish beaches – endless photos of Spain’s best kept sandy secrets sent in by what the paper is calling ‘citizen journalists’. Great stuff. Have a nice weekend! (Picture above by Lidia Sánchez Barceló via 20minutos.com)
The Catavino crew come round for some serious grilling (that’s Barbequing to us Brits 😉 ), while we chat about grilling culture in Spain and abroad, fine Spanish wines, why Spanish ingredients are so good, and Marina tells us about two great summer salads. This podcast goes hand in hand with the almost simultaneously recorded podcast over at Catavino radio, where we do some serious wine tasting before the food chat here gets underway.
Discuss this episode in the Cuisine from Spain forum.
Thanks to The Big Chorizo for pointing me to an incredible article about the founder of El Mundo interviewing an old school mate who joined ETA, and was sent to assassinate him at a basketball match. There is also a snippet of video on the El Mundo blog.
And staying with my favourite on-line paper, they have a beautiful feature on the 70th anniversary of the civil war, featuring people that are still around to tell their tales – even if the Spanish is beyond you, the faces are wonderful…
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Free Spain Travel Advice at NFS
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!)
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Free iPod Spanish phrase book
“lastminute.com has tapped into the genius of coolgorilla to release the first ever free interactive iPod Spanish phrasebook. With over 750 sound files this will transform your iPod into a portable phrasebook”
Definitely worth checking out. Installation may take a few minutes but you’ll end up with a nice Spanish lady gently whispering key words from your iPod.
Notes from Spain by Ben Curtis 