We love Spain.....real Spain. Or probably more accurately, a Brit's version of real Spain. A version where we are fortunate enough to be able to spend time in this wonderful country with a few euros in our pocket so that we can enjoy what it has to offer. We also love our football.....and our beer. If you are of similar mind and hanker after more of what Spain has to offer then maybe this will whet your appetite and possibly even help point you in a direction to do something about it.
Real Spain
In his book Homage to Catalonia, published in 1938, the author George Orwell wrote "I defy anyone to be thrown as I was among the Spanish working class..........and not be struck by their essential decency; above all, their straightforwardness and generosity .........it says a lot for the Spanish character that the English and the Spaniards always got on well together".
Eighty years on and the country isn't in the grips of a bloody and disastrous civil war and is long through the other side of the resulting 36-year Franco dictatorship. But the point remains that the Spanish are indeed a decent, straightforward and generous people and time spent in this country can be a real joy because of it. Ever wondered why you know next to nothing about the Spanish civil war which ended in 1939 immediately preceding - many would say precipitating - the second World War? Well, there is a reason for that and (my personal take is that) the Pact of Forgetting was only possible because of these inherent attributes.
Okay, that's all a bit serious and this blog isn't. The Spanish are a wonderful nation with a rich history, much of which (the civil war aside) can be discovered, evidenced and witnessed without ever having to set foot inside a museum or get stuck into a weighty book. Indeed, much of the time you can do so with a (modest) beer for company. Pretty much everywhere you go in Spain you are confronted by its history, traditions, passions and its generosity towards the traveler. In this blog, I hope that I can provide a hint of the adventures available to the Brits who know, or at least suspect, that the country has a lot more to offer than Benidorm.
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