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1. | Christmas in Spain
Rather refreshingly, Spain doesn't seem to start gearing up for Christmas until they get into the month of December. It's not the huge commercial circus that it is in the US and the UK; the lights ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 103 Words: 534]
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2. | Spain - Europe's new culinary hotbed
There are exciting times ahead for Spanish cuisine. An extremely good crop of young, ground breaking chefs are placing Spain firmly on the culinary map, even eclipsing their old neighbours to the north in France. According to many Spain is taking over ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 87 Words: 594]
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3. | Pedro Almodovar
Pedro Almoldovar was born in 1949 in Calzada de Calatrava in the Castilla la Mancha region of central Spain. Since his film making debut in the eighties he's written, directed and acted in more than thirty films and can easily lay claim to the title of Spain's ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 127 Words: 612]
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4. | Semana Santa - Malaga
The Holy Week (Semana Santa) processions are the largest religious festival in the catholic world and take place from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday with the processions occurring on five days out of the seven. The festival is very big in Spain and ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 75 Words: 620]
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5. | Sherry - a wine of tradition
A fortified wine from Andalusia produced only in and around the town of Jerez in the Cadiz region. The Spanish producers have since registered the Sherry / Jerez / Xeres name and will prosecute anyone else in the world trying to use it. It is ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 164 Words: 562]
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6. | Diego Velasquez
Diego Velasquez is one of Spain's most celebrated and influential painters, born in 1599 he rose to become the leading artist in the royal court of Phillip IV. Velasquez came along during the contemporary Baroque period and went ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 124 Words: 703]
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7. | The Alhambra - Grenada
The Alhambra is touted by many as being the best preserved example of a Moorish palace in Europe. Located in the Andalusian city of Grenada the ancient fortress is undoubtedly the city's most famous site. The name Alhambra translates as "Red Castle" in Arabic and was described ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 76 Words: 670]
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8. | Gaudi's Barcelona
The native Catalan architect certainly left his mark on this great city and a visit to Barcelona wouldn't be complete without taking in some of his greatest works. An architect seemingly without contemporaries, Gaudi's free-flowing post modern creations were decades ahead of his time. The world has ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 66 Words: 674]
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9. | Madrid - a guide to the key sites and monuments
Spain's capital has enjoyed a serious boom as a city break destination on the last decade. The proliferation of cheap flights has made more and more European cities accessible to weekend travellers. Often overshadowed by the Catalan capital, Barcelona, Madrid is now showing what it has to ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 64 Words: 674]
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10. | San Fermin - Pamplona
Known locally as "Sanfermines", this raucous festival takes place in the Basque town of Pamplona between July 6th-14th in honour of the city's patron saint, San Fermin. It is the most popular and most famous of all Spanish fiestas and is known throughout ...
[Added: 22 Nov 2005 Hits: 72 Words: 718]
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11. | Learn Spanish in Spain
Spanish is undoubtedly the growth language in the world at the moment; it is now spoken by an estimated 352 million people as a first language (with a further 417 million speaking it as a second language) making it the second or third most ...
[Added: 27 Oct 2005 Hits: 81 Words: 486]
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12. | Santiago Calatrava
One of Spain's most famous modern day architects, Santiago Calatrava, was born in Valencia on July 28 1951. He first studied at undergraduate level at the Architecture and Arts and Crafts school. After just one year there, he switched to study architecture ...
[Added: 24 Oct 2005 Hits: 57 Words: 523]
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13. | Prestige Oil Disaster
On November 13th 2002, the Liberian owned tanker, The Prestige, ran into trouble in heavy weather off the coast of Galicia. The 240 metre single-hulled ship had burst one its tanks and was starting to leak oil. The ships Greek captain called the Spanish ...
[Added: 24 Oct 2005 Hits: 119 Words: 691]
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14. | Frida Kahlo
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was born in her parents' house in the small town of Coyoacán, on the outskirts of Mexico City, on July 6 1907. She was the daughter of a German-Jewish, painter and photographer father, who heralded from ...
[Added: 24 Oct 2005 Hits: 134 Words: 751]
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15. | The life of Joan Miró
Joan Miró, the legendary Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramist, was born in Barcelona in 1893. Miró's early life was nothing out of the ordinary, at age 14 he enrolled in the "Escuela Superior de Artes Industriales y Bellas Artes" where he studied ...
[Added: 24 Oct 2005 Hits: 83 Words: 671]
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16. | Basque cuisine
With its turbulent and rich history, the Basque region, in Spain's north east, must be regarded as one of it's most interesting. Once a separate kingdom but now absorbed into Spain, Basques are a still fiercely independent and proud race with their own language and cultural heritage. Certainly in culinary ...
[Added: 24 Oct 2005 Hits: 78 Words: 693]
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17. | Top four city museums in Spain
Spain, with its myriad of influences and epic history, is a country with a diverse gamut of sights and sounds to offer its 45 million tourists who visit every year. An area where this can be seen in particular is in its museums and galleries, a rich history ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 74 Words: 669]
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18. | Surfing Costa Rica's Pacific coast
The Pacific coast of Costa Rica is fast becoming one of the hippest spots on the backpack merry-go-round. It's a surfer's paradise in Central America's most laid-back holiday spot. Areas such as the Nicoya peninsula and Dominical further to the south are the real hotspots where ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 56 Words: 624]
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19. | Spain's other Languages
Despite Castilian (Or Español) being the main language of Spain there are also a number of other languages spoken throughout Spain – many are now recognised officially by the government and regulated by governing bodies to ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 61 Words: 647]
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20. | A guide to some of Spain's quirkier festivals
Spaniards seem rarely to need much of a reason for a fiesta or festival of some sort and you can pretty much guarantee that wherever you are in Spain there will be some merrymaking going on somewhere in honour ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 54 Words: 644]
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21. | Spain's sporting heroes - Miguel Indurain
Miguel Indurain is undoubtedly Spain's greatest cyclist and one of the country's top sporting heroes. Born in Villava, Navarre in 1964, Indurain's greatest achievements came in the world's greatest cycle race, the Tour de France. Between 1991 and 1995 Indurain reigned supreme in the tour taking five victories in ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 77 Words: 625]
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22. | The life of Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born in Fuendetodos in 1740, a town close to Saragossa in the North east of Spain. Shortly after his family moved to nearby Saragossa and this is where he spent the early years of his life. ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 73 Words: 676]
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23. | The Coto Doñana National Park
Located across three provinces of Andalusia, the Doñana National Park is a huge wetland area and one of Spain's most important wildlife centres covering a massive area of 1300 sq km. It is Europe's largest national park and ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 163 Words: 669]
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24. | The Cuisine of Madrid
The Madrid region (one of Spain's smallest), as one would expect, is largely dominated by the capital city itself. It has been said, by gourmands and food critics alike, that Madrid does not really have an individual cuisine all of its own, rather it draws on influence from the ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 61 Words: 540]
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25. | Catalan cuisine - a guide
Barcelona – a city renowned for its cultural diversity and multiple influences and in no area is this more noticeable than its cuisine. Heavily influenced by the surrounding Catalan region and its diverse geographical landscape the area is a melting pot of fresh ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 53 Words: 603]
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26. | A beginner's guide to football in Spain
Football in Spain, much as it is in England, is undoubtedly the national game with a passion for the sport that can only be matched in a handful of countries around the world. Spain's La Liga (Spain's premier football league for those not in the know) is regarded in ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 127 Words: 561]
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27. | Saving the Iberian Lynx
Of the 32 remaining species of big cat left in the world, the Iberian Lynx is the most endangered, even more so than the Siberian tiger. Western Europe's last remaining big cat is in serious trouble, recent estimations place the number of lynx remaining at just over 100 ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 135 Words: 679]
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28. | Real Madrid CF - a brief history
Founded in 1902, Real Madrid Club de Futebol has been one of the superpowers in European football since the middle of the last century. Indeed, they were awarded the honour of "Best club of the 20th century" by FIFA, a recognition of their ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 64 Words: 607]
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29. | La Mercé Festival - Barcelona
Towards the end of September Barcelona begins to limber up for the largest event on its festival calendar, La Mercé, a celebration of the city's patron saint "Mare de Deu de la Mercé". The festival ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 31 Words: 554]
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30. | The English Matador
On an emotional Saturday afternoon in Benalmadena, Frank Evans, more affectionately, (if a bit unoriginally), known as "El Ingles" to his Spanish followers, retired from the ring after nearly four decades as a matador. Evan's has been forced to hang up his "muleta" due to serious arthritis in ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 85 Words: 550]
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31. | Blood and sunshine - bullfight in Malaga
On a blisteringly hot day in Malaga in the summer of 2001 whilst away learning Spanish in the Andalusian city, I resolved to see my first bullfight. With my father being a long time Spanish teacher I had often heard about his ...
[Added: 27 Sep 2005 Hits: 49 Words: 654]
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32. | Andalucian cuisine - a guide
Undoubtedly one of Spain's most culinary rich regions, Andalusia is an area famed for its cuisine and its culture of food. Much like the rest of Spain, food is an important part of social life; here the ...
[Added: 26 Sep 2005 Hits: 44 Words: 694]
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