I hope you are all having/have had a wonderful Christmas with your friends and family, full of good cheer, good food and plenty of liquid refreshment (mine was). Tomorrow is Nochevieja (Old night), New Year's Eve, when Spanish families get together for a big feast, rounded off on the stroke of…

As this is my last proper blog post of 2011 - I will be wishing you a happy new year next week, but other than that I get a (well-earned) break between Christmas and New Year - I thought it would be a good chance to take a look back at some of the interesting stories (and blog posts) about…

Leaving aside the human disasters of Andalucia for today's post, let's look at a fascinating, positive and potentially very exciting story about the region's fauna. One of the most endangered felines in Spain - and the world - is the iberian lynx, the beautiful spotty wild cat, with its…

Salvados interview with Cayetano Martinez de Irujo. The Spanish generally enjoy a good relationship with their aristocracy - they tolerate their picadilloes and foibles, discussing them in animated chat shows, poring over them in the prensa rosa, and treating them like a live telenovella (soap…

Today is the first day for the new toll on the A22 road in Portugal. This is the continuation of the Sevilla-Huelva motorway, the A49, after it crosses the bridge over the river Guadiamar after Ayamonte, and carries on into the Algarve. Many residents of western Andalucia are up in arms, not…

Last week a survey published by travel review website Qype, which analysed 10,000 reports and reviews from users in 12 countries, awarded Seville five stars, its maximum rating. The website carries reviews of cities and establishments such as hotels and restaurants. The favourite Spanish towns…

I haven't done a photo post on this blog for some time now. So here's an interactive post for you: seven photos, one from each of all the provinces in Andalucia except Jaen, which I'm ashamed to admit I've never visited in my eight years of living here. See if you can guess where they were taken.…

If you've ever been to Malaga - or if you live nearby - you'll know that it has an extraordinary amount of museums, covering everything from religion to wine, and cars to art, with Picasso being its most famous son. Now Seville is getting two new museums: one about travel, and one about tiles…

Amidst all the uncertainty of this post-election week, with everyone waiting for the new Prime Minister-elect, Mariano Rajoy, to make his pronouncement on how he's planning to get us out of this mess, it was a relief to come across some extremely positive news. Not that it is a special…

This was the characteristically pragmatic declaration by Spain's new Prime Minister-elect, in his victory speech in Madrid last night. Mariano Rajoy's Partido Popular romped home to an overwhelming victory in the elections, winning even more seats than predicted - 186, to the PSOE's 110. It was a…