KARETHE LINAAE
What happens when a dozen pig-headed and handsomely decorated donkeys, three love-lusty mules, two shiny stallions and a hundred party-loving Andalucians go for a mountain hike? This is what we discovered when we set out on the second annual Ruta Arriera Serranía Romántica walk yesterday. Donkeys may seem like a Spanish tourist gimmick, a romantic…
Have you ever noticed that some of the best discoveries in life are done when one is lost – mentally, physically, geographically or metaphysically speaking? I love to get lost in a foreign city, walking at random, choosing the most interesting-looking streets. When one gets sufficiently misplaced and has discovered many yet unknown to one…
The Andalucian environmental organization Ronda Limpia is planning its second annual Día de Ronda Limpia in the mountain town of Ronda in Southern Spain. The event will be held in Ronda’s breathtaking La Alamada del Tajo on April 25, 2015. Ronda Limpia is a volunteer organization aiming to educate and encourage better environmental habits. As…
My husband and I were stuck for eight long hours at a foggy former military airport just south of Oslo during Christmas 2012. The entire departure area had just a single place to purchase anything, a combined magazine store and café. After having read every paper available and consumed anything remotely eatable from their scant…
Andalucía is the southernmost and most populous of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions. Bordering the Atlantic and the Mediterranean sea, it includes the provinces of Almería, Cádiz, Cordoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Sevilla. Though tourists flock to the Andalucian coasts for the stereotypical sun and Sangria, the region also offer a variety of cultural, historical…
The annual Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s über-traditional New Year’s Concert is more popular than ever. Televised in over 90 countries to an estimated audience of 50 million people, one admittedly is dealing with a universal ‘hit’. Yet, this greatly loved tradition hides a dubious past. The orchestra, founded in 1842, is recognized as one of the…
Forget about presents, Santas and Michael Buble’s Christmas Special. My favourite things about Norwegian Christmas are the taste of roasted reindeer, the smell of myrrh incense and, most of all, the tradition of lighting candles on the family graves. There is nothing more peaceful than seeing a snow covered churchyard at night with hundreds of…
When the Duchess of Alba, head of the 530-year-old House of Alba, passed away in her Sevilla palace last week at the age of 88, she truly marked the end of an area. Prior to her death, the duchess had more nobility titles than any living person (seven times Duchess, once Countess-Duchess, 19 times Marquesa,…
For centuries, Ronda has been hailed by artists and romantic travellers as a Ciudad Soñada or a city of dreams. No time is this more apparent than when walking across the bridge that gaps the 120-meter gorge, which forms the main traffic artery through this dramatic town. “Nothing in all Spain is more surprising than this…
Fall has definitively arrived in Ronda. Not with the gloomy darkness, wind-bursts and incessant rains of more northern climates, but with dramatically skies, sudden downpours, mystical mists and spectacular rainbows. It is autumn all right even on the southern tip of Spain. By November, the steady pour of visitors flocking across Ronda’s famous Puente Nuevo has…