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My friend is about to get on a flight from Barcelona with a troupe of castellers.

It sounds like Spanish national airport operator AENA is very much over Ryanair and MOL. Haven’t seen something this… forthright in quite some time, and goodness me, forthright it is. www.aena.es/en/press/sta...

I don't think I have enough followers in Spain to merit a residency renewal rant but… JODER

Entre Dos Aguas by Paco de Lucía. The name of the song, 'Between Two Waters' refers to his native city of Algeciras, which sits where the Atlantic and Mediterranean meet. youtube.com/watch?v=2oyh...

Please enjoy these photos of Lorca and Dalí, friends from the ages of 19 (Dalí) and 25 (Lorca), until Lorca's execution.

Travel PSA: Ryanair is increasing its underseat bag allowance by 5cm to 40x30x25. If you travel as light as I do this is thrilling news.

Bon dia

Tell me you've never tried sliding a tortilla out of a pan without telling me etc

Em mataran (ii)

Regular readers* will know of my ongoing fascination with Birmingham Live’s hysteria over all things Spain-related. Lifetime achievement unlocked today as they quote me rubbishing one of their fave topics. (I do not remember saying this or ever being asked about it but anyway) [*of Twitter pre-2024]

Em mataran

Old-person rant but omfg yes. An exhausting amount of every press trip is very young people saying 'AMAZING' to really very ordinary things they are too inexperienced to have come across or that are very silly but designed to look cutting edge and clever <oldpersonrantends> nymag.com/intelligence...

‘Ya habrá tiempo en septiembre para volver a exigir soluciones’

So good to be back in the ‘hood, where my local caff looks like this and where a café con leche costs €2.10 despite *gestures broadly at Modernista splendour* #barcelonatravel #modernisme #palaudelamusica

No. #savedyouaclick

Vibrant. Always vibrant.

This is brilliant. Rarely nodded so furiously at an article. Down with sharing plates. Down with 28-course tasting menus. Down with allergies of convenience. Up with gastropubs.

Next up in brilliant Spanish transport initiatives, Madrid's new freight metro train to fight the plague of delivery vans.

Sitges, apparently. According to AI after raking through your holiday photos and analysing your emotions in a move that's not at all creepy.

Spain is huge. There are bits you've never even dreamed of.

In numbers: The Iberian Peninsula’s exceptionally clean electricity mix theprogressplaybook.com/2025/01/14/t...

No. #savedyouaclick

Barcelona council leaving Twitter except for emergencies, describing it as a ‘spiral of misinformation and intransigence that directly attacks democracy”.

How many Spanish castles can you identify? More than me, probably. 6/10. And I'm supposed to be some sort of expert.

Ryanair to cut a bunch of flights to Spain. I presume* this is also related to the recent ruling in Spain that airlines can't change extra for cabin bags, seats etc. [*but am not sufficiently stirred to find out]

Rachel Kushner brutally unmoved by the charms of Cardona and Girona.

Was this its Roman name or

In my new role as Travel Drama Reporter, can I just point out that there is a train on fire at Gatwick station.

Picked this up today and I think "a drunk organist’s nightmare about a Christmas tree" might be my new favourite description of the Sagrada Família ever.

Relatedly…

This is very neat.

Somehow on Spanish Bluesky this has become 'Squirrels Hunt and Eat Moles' which seems immeasurably more gruesome.

My week in food #barcelona

Apologies to all those I follow and missed - I couldn’t work out how to do it properly. Please add names and links. The key here is it’s people who post mostly in English - not Spanish - about Spain and Spain-related stuff.

This is what the @economist.com thinks Spain (the best-performing "rich economy" this year.. and under a much-criticized left-wing coalition government, no less) can teach the rest of Europe

Hi everybody. We're a Madrid, Spain, based literary magazine. We publish in print and online. Right now Issue 2 is free to read and download from www.themadridreview.com Writers, poets, readers, artists: follow us and we'll follow you. Nice to be here! #litmag #literature #writers #poets #poetry

I often wonder how much responsibility the state holds for the quality of the tap water. Why is it so bad in Barcelona but tastes completely fine in Madrid? Surely that's worth addressing if we want to stop people buying bottled?

🇪🇸Any fans of Madrid here? I recently wrote about why, finally, it is being recognized as one of the world’s great capital cities. Enjoy, share, gracias! open.substack.com/pub/brendybo...

fine list: much to love here www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/t...

Useful resource!!

The most reliable Spanish newspaper is now here @eldiarioes.bsky.social

Since I've been added to a food people starter pack I should probably start posting some actual food. Do Insta links work on here? www.instagram.com/p/DCWs9_VIUs...

The EU is about to launch a single European booking system for train tickets. This means that you will be able to travel to multiple destinations in multiple countries on just one ticket with your full travel schedule clearly mapped out. 👍👍👍 www.euronews.com/travel/2024/...

“In Madrid, it’s never late,” as Imanol Arias said in Pedro Almodóvar´s The Flower of My Secret. But if people insist on eating early, there’s really no problem… www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/desti...

The centre of Cadaqués in the early hours of this morning.

Here we go again. Good luck everyone.

V last-minute but got a spare invite to this tonight at In-Edit if any Barcelona people would like it

Thanks to @essentialbcn.bsky.social for reminding me about this Jonathan Meades doc on Franco. Contains some of the most entertainingly weary delivery on earth and lines such as "[Franco] was posthumously generous with his phosphates."