A goal scored against historical Philistinism. As a result of pressure from the public, the archaeological remains corresponding to a part of Muslim mediaeval Murcia are to be conserved in situ. The extraordinary find emerged during preparatory excavations for a car park in the Jardín de San Esteban, next to the seat of Murcia's regional government. The authorities had wanted to press on with the car park anyway, but civic protest, orchestrated by the Plataforma Ciudadana para la Conservación del Patrimonio Arqueológico de San Esteban and culminating in a human chain around the site, has forced them to back down. The 13th century streets discovered include the remains of 50 houses, seven mansions and a mosque.

 

The Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta in North Africa have declared November 17th, 2010, a public holiday. It marks the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha or Feast of the Sacrifice, and next year's will be the first time a non-Christian religous festival is celebrated in Spain since the Reconquest.

'Chiringuito' means 'beach bar,' and can be anything from a stall selling drinks to a luxury restaurant or chic nightspot. For many visitors and residents alike, it is Spain at its most enjoyable - a beer or a paella savoured with a breeze on your face and the smell of the sea in your nostrils can be simply sublime. But one effect of the 1988 Ley de Costas, intended to make the Spanish shoreline unambiguously public, was to throw many beach bars off the sand, particularly those which were unable to guarantee minimum standards in terms of food handling and other hygiene-related matters. The process is long over in most of the country, but for bureaucratic reasons has never been carried out in Andalusia, particularly the province of Málaga, i.e., the Costa del Sol. This changed with the fresh impetus given to the Ley de Costas by Socialist Cristina Narbona, Minister of the Environment from 2004 to 2008. The imminent application of the law to the Andalusian costas sowed panic among chiringuito owners, and their cries of protest have been echoed by others who see the chiringuito as representative of the very spirit of Andalusia. As so often, the panic was premature, and most Andalusian chiringuitos are set to have their concessions extended, perhaps being obliged to make minor adaptations. Read more.

Ronda's Casa del Gigante, Giant's House, gets its name from an ancient statue or relief on one of its corners. It is actually a Moorish palace, specifically a Nasrid palace - the Nasrids were the dynasty which ruled the taifas, minor kingdoms, of Ronda, and the last Moorish kingdom in Spain, the taifa of Granada, where they built Spain's most famous building, the Alhambra. The Giant's House is not the Alhambra - there is only one Alhambra, replicas apart - but it is worth visiting if you are in Ronda - itself one of the finest excursions you can make from the Costa del Sol. The Casa del Gigante will give you a taste of the exuberance of Moorish architecture, it doesn't require queuing for hours, and the entrance is much cheaper than its big brother. The reason I am telling you all this is that part of the house now belongs to a winery, Bodegas La Sangre, which has sent in a link request for its Wine Museum with a description which is far too long to use as a link annotation, but too good to waste, so I include it here as a news item.

Nearly 1,000 ruined holidays at the Beach Club Hotel, Torremolinos, between 2000 and 2002 have cost tour operators dearly. Or more spoilt Spanish vacations than that, that "thousand" being the number of claimants who fell ill at the Beach Club with one sort of intestinal malady or another, mostly Norovirus, so it does not include healthy but miserable family members. Thomson Holiday (TUI) and JMC (Thomas Cook) have had to pay out over £2.5 million to 790 aggrieved holidaymakers. Five anonymous tour companies settled over 200 claims out of court, but Thomson and Thomas Cook continued to deny liability until a few days before the case was due in court. The settlement package has been approved by Birmingham High Court, where the three-week case would have been heard. Read more about this case on the next page, where I will also point out that, far from being a thing of the past, complaints about the Beach Club Hotel and "the dreaded bug" are very much ongoing.