Spain and Portugal for Visitors

A Spanair aeroplane with 160 passengers aboard with destination Gran Canaria has crashed while attempting to take off at around 14.30. Media are reporting the accident at Barajas Terminal 4. The number of casualties is unknown, and deaths have not yet been announced. The aircraft is burning and it is thought an engine fire may have caused the accident. Emergency services have been activated and I believe Barajas is currently closed to air traffic. The aeroplane seems to correspond to Spanair flight JKK5022, scheduled to take off from Terminal 2 at 13:00 but delayed. The AENA website currently reports that the flight took off at 14:15.

Posted by : John Ross on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - 07:48 AM 97 reads

A blog post in Under The Grape Tree (see The Many Names of Tempranillo) reminded me of something I had been meaning to investigate - just how many different names are there for the Spanish Tempranillo grape? It's one of the most important in the Spanish and Portuguese wine world, only Garnacha being more widely grown in the Iberian Peninsula, and one of the most characteristic, being responsible for much of the particularly fruity nature of Rioja wine, for example, and even more of that of Ribera del Duero. Read more.

Posted by : John Ross on Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 11:51 AM 34 reads

What on earth does Ryanair think it is doing? First it announces a "crackdown" on screenscraper sites like Bravofly or eDreams, then it takes no action, then it cancels Bravfly reservations and no-one else's, though it says it will but, don't worry, passengers will be compensated. Now it says it is up to the resellers to give grounded travellers their money back, and that its cancellations will take place from August 26th on. Meanwhile, the EU has told it in no uncertain terms, "Don't do this," and been ignored. Everyone is confused, most of all travellers and, I suspect, Ryanair itself, which is behaving like a headless chicken. Rubén Sanchez of Spanish consumer association Facua has called Ryanair the most "impresentable" company in Spain, and you need to know a little Spanish to appreciate just how serious an insult that is because it's a Spanish thing: impresentable is, for example, what you call the lout you wouldn't allow to marry your daughter if he were the last man on the face of the planet. I have no more to add for the moment, click here to leave a comment.

Posted by : John Ross on Friday, August 15, 2008 - 08:57 AM 64 reads

I have been plagiarized yet again, and as often, one of my articles which has been filched is Castles in Spain. It's one of the first that I (re)wrote when I set this site up separately from the About.com network (whence it came) and has always seemed to be well-liked, so I suppose it isn't surprising. There doesn't seem to be much to be done about the plagiarism, but as it is such a popular theme, I've cobbled together a Google map of nearly 90 of the most interesting castles in the country, together with an article about Spain's mediaeval history. You can see it here, or read on for a bit more about why Spain is so rich in castles, Spain's mediaeval Christian-Muslim divide and the reconquista.

Posted by : John Ross on Friday, August 15, 2008 - 07:54 AM 64 reads

The Onion recently published one of its oh-so-funny-because-it's-almost-true stories headlined "Going to Tops of Things Still Favoured by Nation's Tourists," which stated that "In 2008, tourists remained committed to standing in long lines at the bottoms of things, paying upwards of $20 to gain access to the tops of those things, and then staring at other smaller, more distant things for a few minutes before descending, often to have funny pictures of themselves drawn incorporating the things in the background." And it's funny, but it's true - everyone likes going to the top of things - just think how many millions of people have been up the otherwise entirely pointless Eiffel Tower since 1889. The top thing to climb this year in Spain is probably... ah, no, I'll leave it till last. Read on for Top Things to Go to the Top of in Spain (in ascending order, how else?).

Posted by : John Ross on Friday, August 08, 2008 - 10:55 AM 122 reads