KARETHE LINAAE
2025 has been the year when summer refused to end. Every day in June, the temperature climbed above 30 degrees here in southern Spain. Then came the Terral winds, bringing the tropical heat of July and August, with new records for both highs and lows. That much was expected. What wasn’t expected was that the…
Most people who move to Spain have their own requirements. According to real estate agents on the Costa del Sol, most people desire a south-facing terrace, ideally with mountain and sea views, proximity to downtown shops and restaurants, and, preferably, also within walking distance of the beach. But when you are in a wheelchair…
Climate change is causing increasingly extreme meteorological phenomena, including heatwaves, intense storms, and prolonged droughts. These are things that we who reside in Andalucía must learn to live with, but there is one consequence of climate change that may threaten people and the natural environment more than anything else. In recent years, the…
On rare occasions, when all elements and planets are aligned and our creative willpower is unstoppable, providence will step in and spur a project along, far beyond our wildest dreams. This is what happened with a short film I made many years ago, called Off Key. In the 1990s, I was even a worse overachiever…
Several years ago, I received a rose bush as a gift from my friend, Jenny. She bought it at a street market in Pruna, a village in the Andalusian hinterland that few people have probably heard of. The rose lived on our terrace for several years in increasingly larger flowerpots. However, no matter where we…
On rare occasions when travelling, one finds a lodging where one feels completely at home. For me, it has only happened a couple of times. Once at an Inn on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, after a secret nuptial ceremony, and once in a picturesque Haveli in Pushkar (famous for its camel races)…
When the international press writes about the Andalusian inland town of Ronda, they almost always talk about the historic bridge or Spain’s oldest permanent bullring. Therefore, it was a big surprise when the prestigious American TIME Magazine chose a brand-new building in the Tajo-city as number one on their list of the World’s Best Places…
I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist, but has anyone else noticed that somebody or something is messing with our time? As a youngster, hearing older people complaining about how fast time passed, I wondered what their problem was since my time felt infinite. But now that I have become one of the ‘oldies’ myself, I…
Si crees que tienes un trabajo duro, piénsalo de nuevo. Una de las ocupaciones más exigentes aquí en España debe ser la de entregar las bombonas de gas a los hogares y empresas del país. Hablé con nuestro butanero local y descubrí que levanta cerca de 10.000 kg ¡por día! En casi todos…
What we think of as modern spa treatments are far from new. Mankind’s attraction to warm water and well-being goes back to antiquity. Both the Greeks and the Romans had very advanced public bathing cultures, but it was the Arabs who perfected it here in Andalucía. One can visit the ruins of these baths from…