As we crossed the river bridge into the town of Lérida, I looked down to where there were women washing clothes in the slow-moving water. For even after all these years, I still have a crazy romantic illusion about Spain.
The next day, as I walked west through olive groves towards Tarragona, I picked one from the tree. It doesn’t; it means “tears”. It is one of the few countries in Europe where poverty is not treated with contempt, and, I may add, where the wealthy are not blindly idolised.”, Well that’s what our daughter got from the village school. That night I stayed in a commercial hotel in Tárrega – 50 pesetas for supper and a bed in a room with three others. No sooner had Chris Stewart set eyes on El Valero than he handed over a check. © 2017 Luke Stewart Media.
I cannot think of anywhere in the world where I would have rather seen her grow up than in this little Spanish town.
Chris invites you to explore the area and share his deep knowledge (and great stories) about the history, culture and nature of … We were unmistakably different, though. That was the easy part.
I still love my native Britain, but, as somebody remarked, it’s a nice place to get a letter from… you wouldn’t want to live there. Our daughter was born in the Clinica Inmaculada in Granada, and as she passed through the school system and lived and played with the families of her friends in the village, she brought us deeper into the world that surrounds us. 19/11/12 – Just picked up your book Driving Over Lemons at the Cadiz library. “Why can’t you be like everybody else?” she asked. I WAS just 21 when I first arrived in Spain, hitchhiking over the Pyrenees into this strange, seemingly African land. It’s in the nature of the expat to grumble and criticise the host country, and lord knows there’s enough to moan about… as there is in whatever land you choose to make your stand. But those same locals take for granted things that make my jaw drop, such as the ever-present Griffon Vultures. Casa Ana is a 400 year old house in the village of Ferreirola in the Alpujarras, Andalucia. This is the first in a series of occasional articles about life in the backwoods of Spain, by Chris Stewart, the best-selling author of ‘Driving Over Lemons’ and ‘Three Ways to Capsize a Boat’, written at his organic farm in the Alpujarras of Andalusia (the foothills of Spain’s Sierra Nevada Mountain) where he lives with his wife Annie, and lots of animals. Chris Stewart’s postcard from Spain. The author Chris Stewart moved to El Valero, an abandoned farm in Andalusia, in the 1980s. Here we have space, solitary wilderness to walk the dogs; we have our own oranges and olive oil; we pick lemons, almonds and apricots from our trees. Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart, and his El Valero titles are available on Kindle, and in bookshops. Francisco Tárrega was a great composer and teacher of guitar. At the end of a week it was made clear to me that I was not an asset in the orange fields. To keep us warm in winter the rivers bring us driftwood, and there are prunings of olive and almond that burn hot as coal. Málaga We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. In the company of a washing-machine repairman, I took my first tentative steps in the language, as his little van bucketed down the narrow road to Lérida. I feel that they have so much to give me. The judiciary has wrecked its credibility by imposing a witch-hunt against Baltasar Garzón, who inspired the admiration of the world by bringing to justice dictators, drug-runners and terrorists, and investigating, as well as the morass of corruption in the country, the crimes against humanity perpetrated during the Civil War and dictatorship. George Borrow, the 19th-century author, wrote in The Bible in Spain: “I will say for the Spaniards, that in their social intercourse no people in the world exhibit a juster feeling of what is due to the dignity of human nature, or better understand the behaviour which it behoves a man to adopt towards his fellow human beings.
Finally, I arrived in Sevilla, the self-proclaimed Queen of Andalucia, and the only place for a romantically inclined young man to learn the guitar. The house recently featured in the Times top 50 places for a holiday in Spain. Once an important family home with a wine press, olive oil store, barns and stables, Casa Ana has been transformed into a stylish and comfortable guest house with south-facing terraces, a garden and spectacular river gorge views. All rights reserved.
That is so true.