¡Viva España!

When I was a kid, Spain was mysterious and fascinating for its differences to the European north: warm, sunny, life-embracingly passionate, and an escape from confining structures and norms. Popular culture, especially popular music such as the 1972 hit “Eviva España” celebrated Spain as a popular, desirable summer vacation destination. A visit to Spain, for me, seemed unachievable, even later when Spain became synonymous with cheap beach tourism for the masses. Some friends would return from vacations with enviable tans and amazing stories. What I know now is that Spain was comparatively poor. Owing to Franco’s repressive dictatorship, Spain didn’t fully participate in the European post war economic boom, leaving it dangling on the bottom Europe, rather than part of it. Thankfully, Spain experienced a transition to a constitutional democracy after Franco’s death, laying the foundation for the country’s 1986 accession to the European Union (to over-simplify a hugely complicated, years-long effort).

Today, Spain is an impressively modern country. Well-functioning infrastructure, a high quality of life experience, a favorable cost of living speak to an environment where many things work while being accessible. Socially, Spain has leapfrogged many other European Union countries, now being a leader in gender equality and being the third EU country, after the Netherlands and Belgium, to recognize same sex marriage in 2005.

El Campello

Practically, for people like us, that makes Spain an incredibly livable place. We were happy to spend a full two months in Spain this year, mainly just “living.” Last year, we spent time in the city of Alicante, and this year we opted for a more tranquil setting, El Campello. As a town of about 30,000, it has everything that we needed for daily living, and it is just a tram ride away from the ‘big city’ of Alicante. Like its bigger neighbor, Campello has some tourism, and it is not defined by tourism. The beach front is home to cafes, restaurants, and bars, and it is also the start of a Malecon promenade for 6+ kilometer walks by the beach and mediterranean. A particular ice cream coffee shop became our favorite, not only because of the churros and chocolate, but because the owners were glad to welcome us, and we would talk about travels and places we liked and places we wanted to see.

El Campello was immediately comfortable, feeling very much like a home. After last year’s stay in the area, we reported about our love for Mercadona, the grocery store. Certainly, that love affair continued this year, since we have one in walking distance of our apartment. The store joins fresh and interesting food at a very reasonable price point. A bakery, a fish counter, a butcher, and a counter dedicated to jamon (and in store slicing of it) coexist with a broad variety of packaged foods and pantry staples. Our visits there were almost daily. There were other supermarkets, of course, but none got more of our attention than Mercadona. Another exciting food experience in El Campello is the twice-week outdoor market. There’s plenty of stands with “stuff,” but what drew us were the various food vendors, especially the produce. The region, and regions to the south, are agriculturally rich and diverse, making many of the offerings very local. Fresh lettuce, beautiful fennel, white onions, and carrots that tasted like carrots were the norm. And tomatoes, they were amazing. For their taste, as well as for their variety. And RAF tomatoes were a revelatory experience. A varietal that thrives on salinity in the irrigation water, making it sweet and salty and tomatoey and amazing. Fruit is also abundant, and much of it debuts seasonally. Two new-to-me experiences were fresh dates and loquats which made their appearance while we were there. Mandarins of different kinds provided lots of entertainment. And there’s something fun and quaint about the market experience, especially after learning about individual vendors’ strong points, and when some of them would start to recognize us as recurring customers.

Our apartment was a typical local family apartment, chopped up into too many rooms, but functional. The only Airbnb in the building, we got to have friendly interactions with many of the other residents, especially as we navigated the recalcitrant elevator together. A feature that we came to appreciate is that the ground floor was home to a Kebab restaurant, where meat is cooked on a vertical rotisserie, similar to shawarma, gyros, or al pastor, and shaved into a pita or roll. The result is a quick, tasty, and easy option for dinner.

With all that food to absorb, we managed to join a local gym that was just a few doors down from our apartment. I’m mentioning this not to brag about the gym, but because our experience there was emblematic of the welcoming reception we received almost everywhere. Our joining process included a conversation going beyond the polite “Where are you from?” to include the question whether we were a couple and that, since yes, we’d get the family discount. The cloying customer service niceties that we’ve come to expect in the US and miss when we don’t get them, were often replaced with a more genuine, interested interaction, even if it was limited by our language limitations. 

Semana Santa

One of the highlights of our stay was witnessing the public festivities for Easter. Easter week (Semana Santa) is a big deal and is celebrated publicly with two processions on Holy Thursday (Jueves Santo) and Good Friday (Viernes Santo). We observed both in El Campello. Thursday’s procession was late, quiet, and subdued, while Friday’s event was accompanied by band instruments and drums. A lot of religious iconography moves through the streets in the processions, which was made up of a lot of different contingents of celebrants. A number of groups make up the procession, including clergy, brotherhoods, and the band. Two are most striking to the novice observer. First, the Las Manolas (Women in Mantilla), are dressed in restrained, but striking, black lace outfits, representing mourning as well as the role of women in both the passion narrative and society. The second group is that of Los Nazarenos (Penitents). Members wearing robes and pointed hoods (capirotes), carrying candles or crosses. For us, the pointed hoods bear an uncomfortable resemblance to KKK costume, but the capirotes long pre-date US history and are meant to communicate personal penance, anonymity before God, and spiritual humility. While the processions certainly were a spectacle, they did not feel like a performance. We were one of the few “tourist” observers, and participation in the events seemed heartfelt and genuine. We took lots of photos.

Madrid

We interrupted our two months in El Campello with our excursion to Granada and the Alhambra (we did a separate post about the Alhambra here), and our only other high octane tourist adventure was Madrid, where we spent our last five days in Spain. Madrid was amazing, and fun, and nuts. Eleven million tourists visit Madrid annually, and it seemed they were all there while we were. Our hotel was in the middle of tourism central. It was a great location from which to explore all the tourist must dos. We explored the three big museums (Thyssen, Reina Sofia, and Prado), the Banksy Museum, and parks and the royal botanical garden in between. Lots of public art tells about Spain’s history, and the amount of art and installation that deals with Spain’s dictatorial past and struggle against fascism is striking. We also set out to explore a few things off the beaten tourist path, and it was nice to leave the “school of sardines” experience. We were aiming for one of the many churches, which turned out to be closed, but discovered a most lovely rose garden instead. Our hike to explore Puente de Toledo allowed us to stumble into a beautiful riverbed park and to discover Puente de Arganzuela. The former is an ancient bridge built in the 1720s, and the latter a super modern, sculptural steel construction of a foot bridge. And we, of course, managed not to neglect food. We made it to Dani’s from Somebody Feed Phil fame. They claim the best tortilla (egg and potato omelet, very traditional and ubiquitous). It was certainly the best tortilla I’ve ever had, and the jamon croquettes were exceptional as well. And we had an end of stay in Spain dinner at Casa Mortero. Also outstanding.

Spain, today, is so much more than vacation. It is an interesting and very livable place. While it has economically progressed, it embraces a balanced life. People, weather, food, all interesting and comfortable. We will surely return.

¡Viva España! ¡Hasta pronto!