All entries for Thursday 05 April 2007

Andalucia te quiere

Went to Andalucia on holidays. Couldn’t believe what I saw… It’s so nice it makes you weep!

To start off in a mundane tone. In a plebescite held last month, to quiz Andalucians on their opinion of the new Statute of Autonomy, only some 30% turned up. Why do I mention this fact? Because I find it incredible. With such a beautiful land, wouldn’t everyone want to keep it as much for themselves as they could? On the other hand, Andalucians probably have better things to do than going to the voting urns. They prefer to walk the streets of their picturesque cities, lie on their amazing beaches or have coffee in small cafes where they flirt with the most beautiful waitresses of Spain.

In eight days, we saw Cordoba, Seville, Malaga, Granada, and half of the east coast, the Costa del Sol. I was mostly struck by the vastness and wildness of the countryside – kilometres on end of mountain ridges, steep valleys, houses built into rocks, olive trees. Then it surprised me just how green Andalucia actually is. Although it lacks the deep green of northern vegetation, there is still an abundance of woodland and plantations, as well as England-styled grass-green hills.

I personally liked Malaga the most, but it entirely depends on your taste of cities. Seville and Malaga for example are, besides 200-something km, also worlds apart in city layout and atmosphere.

But to go short, more than ever so far have I experienced the richness and preciousness of Spain, the seeming infinity of little spots to discover, summer houses on the most amazing locations, Germans and Britons whom, despite the unoriginality of their holidays still, and with good reason, consider themselves in a type of European paradise.

: 05 Apr 2007 18:44 |  Tags: 2007 Cities English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem