Spain

The treasures of sherry

31 August 2024 9:00 am

We were talking Spain and drinking Spanish. The UK and Spain are very different societies, but we did find points…

48 hours of food in Andalusia

13 July 2024 9:00 am

In Spain, you can eat all day – and we did. Earlier in the summer, I spent two days in…

Can Begona Gomez get a fair trial in Spain?

6 June 2024 2:47 am

Begona Gomez, the wife of Spain’s Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez, has received a court summons for 5 July, in connection with…

A middle-aged man in crisis: How to Make a Bomb, by Rupert Thomson, reviewed

25 May 2024 9:00 am

Travelling home from an academic conference, Philip Notman suddenly feels sick and disorientated. But it will take a long time for him to identify the cause, and possible cure

Do we really want to bring back the wolf?

2 March 2024 9:00 am

The apex predator is making a startling resurgence in Europe – many say to the enrichment of the landscape. But it’ll take a lot to convince the British of that

Portrait of the Week

2 September 2023 9:00 am

England need to look alive to have a shot at the Rugby World Cup

2 September 2023 9:00 am

So the end is near… or it certainly will be soon if England’s rugby players carry on trying to do…

The ‘historic’ national dishes which turn out to be artful PR exercises

19 August 2023 9:00 am

Japan’s ramen ‘tradition’ was created in 1958 to use up surplus imported flour, while Pizza Margherita’s specious royal connection helped boost Naples’s tourist trade

The Franco-Prussian war changed the map of Europe – so why are we so ignorant about it?

17 June 2023 9:00 am

Rachel Chrastil describes how Bismarck, relying on Gallic pride to provoke the war he wanted, ensured that France would fight without a single ally

Tinta de Toro: the Spanish red that helped Columbus make waves

20 May 2023 9:00 am

I am assured that this is not a legend. But a few years ago, an Irishman’s life was twice saved…

Our provision for adults with learning disabilities is seriously inadequate

15 October 2022 9:00 am

This book reveals one man’s determination to enable his brother to live his best life. It is also a fable…

Friend of Elizabethan exiles: the colourful life of Jane Dormer

7 May 2022 9:00 am

Thomas Cromwell’s biographer Diarmaid MacCulloch once told me that my father’s family, the Dormers, had been servants of the great…

Spain's shift towards the radical right

15 February 2022 12:35 am

Yesterday’s snap election in Castile-León, one of the 17 regional autonomies into which Spain is divided, was another excellent day…

Can Spain save its dying villages?

2 February 2022 11:55 pm

In a little village on the Spanish Meseta, I once asked an old lady about the next village some three…

Vega Sicilia: the best Spanish wine I have ever tasted

23 October 2021 9:00 am

Four hundred and fifty years ago this month, a great victory helped to safeguard European civilisation. The battle of Lepanto…

Bullfighting and the fight for Spain’s future

18 October 2021 1:43 am

Being sanctimonious about foreigners and their cruelty to animals has long been a British tradition. The taste for dog meat…

Spain's growing culture war over General Franco

26 July 2021 8:00 pm

There are hundreds of mass graves dotted around the Spanish countryside. In roadside ditches, down hillside gullies, dumped in pits…

Sweet and sour: Barcelona Dreaming, by Rupert Thomson, reviewed

3 July 2021 9:00 am

I’ve never been to Barcelona, but Rupert Thomson makes it feel like an old friend. The hot, airless nights and…

Spain's pardoning of Catalan separatists may backfire

22 June 2021 7:21 pm

In one of his adventures on the highways of 17th-century Spain, Don Quixote encounters a gang of prisoners ‘manacled and…

Is this a new dawn for the Spanish right?

6 May 2021 1:14 am

In Tuesday’s regional elections in Madrid, the right-wing Partido Popular emerged as by far the most successful party, more than…

Can Spain's Europhilism last?

11 April 2021 4:00 pm

‘Suppose a man be carried, whilst fast asleep, into a room where there is a person he longs to see…

Spain's anarchists are rioting

23 February 2021 6:00 pm

Michael Bakunin, the 19th century revolutionary Russian anarchist, identified Spain as the place where his creed was most likely to…

Catalonia’s grievance culture

16 February 2021 3:17 am

‘Scotland,’ declared the Times in 1856, is ‘manifestly a country in want of a grievance.’ The same could be said…

Can Spain's faith in the EU survive Covid?

30 January 2021 5:30 pm

According to ancient Moorish legend, when the world was created each land was given five wishes. Spain’s first four wishes…

Spain's transgender wars are turning nasty

23 January 2021 6:05 pm

Lidia Falcón O’Neill is a legendary figure in Spanish politics. Half a century ago, she stood up to Franco as head of…