Divine Spanish Holiday Treats – spending a day in our local convent kitchen
Say the word Christmas and people’s mouths begin to water. T’is the season for sweet indulgences and sins to abound. In Spain bakers get into high gear, as amigos, families, companies and brotherhoods prepare to celebrate this more …
The Madrid Climate Conference and the ‘no-pasa nada’ rural Andalucía
As world leaders meet at the United Nation Climate Change Conference in Madrid these days and a brave young Swede has sailed across the Atlantic to get there, I thought it time to take a look at Spain’s own ecological …
Want to learn Spanish? Seven tips on how to go native
Many foreigners live in Spain for years and never learn to speak the local language. Some say they are too old. Others won’t even try, surviving I suppose, with English and sign language. I am the first to admit that …
Long weekend in Lisbon – a pastel city portrait
Mysterious, magnificent and mellow – many words have been used to describe Portugal’s coastal capital, though I see it as a portrait in pink and blue. Arriving across the Ponte 25 de Abril suspension bridge, the city lays bathed in …
A subterranean meeting with the new Neanderthals – La Cueva de Ardales
Imagine a perfect prehistoric time capsule laying undisturbed for millennia. This is La Cueva de Ardales, an enormous cave near the small town of Ardales, 50 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast. The cave would likely never have been discovered …
Nocturnal grape harvest at Descalzos Viejos – Possibly Spain’s most spectacular vineyard
Sensational Andalucía – sight, sound, smell, taste and touch impressions from the Spanish south
Some of the best things about travelling are the sensory impressions that we retain long after travel photos have become dusty memories in forgotten albums.
When I visited India some years back I took several thousand photos, yet what stuck …
The Legends, Lies And Secrets Of Ronda’s Majestic Mina De Agua
The most astonishing fact about Ronda’s secret water mine is that it was made in the first place. The second most remarkable thing is that it is still here 700 years later, in spite of military battles, profit-seeking owners, grave …
The olive tree – a pictorial guide to its many split personalities and idiosyncrasies
We Norwegians see trolls behind every rock, so it is no surprise that I also attribute olive trees with certain human characteristics. I mean, just look at them – bent and gnarly and simply exuding personality. I cannot go for …