Business over Tapas Nº 591

A digest of this week's Spanish financial, political and social news aimed primarily at Foreign Property Owners:

Prepared by Lenox Napier.  Consultant: José Antonio Sierra

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Editorial Business over Tapas:

It’s so hot where I’m living, so very hot, that I’m thirsty all the time.

When I go shopping, I buy drinks. Water, horchata, beer, juice and Aquarius. If there’s room in the bag, and there won’t be, then maybe something to eat – cheese, bread and anything simple that my air-fryer can handle.

They’d run out of Aquarius yesterday, the drink that is an isotonic beverage made by the Coca Cola people. I’m told that it ‘helps with hydration and to replenish fluids and minerals lost during physical activity’, like tipping the shopping bag full of drinks straight into the fridge. Anyway, they had a special new version in the shop, red instead of grey, so I bought a bottle of that instead: Aquarius Melocotón Rojo: Red Peach! Google says they are far rarer than the ‘yellow-fleshed type’. Who would have guessed?

Anyway, cold, it slips down easily enough.

The beer too.

I was wondering about ingredients. A water bottle will tell you it’s got all these interesting minerals and salts, but a beer will just say, Contents: agua, malts, hops and yeast, and then, in smaller print, ‘Stop reading this stuff, I thought you were thirsty’. The vital ingredient which makes beer such a popular refreshment is mentioned elsewhere: Alcohol: 4.8% (I never saw the point of non-alcoholic beer, which anyway, says Google, is ‘high in calories, carbohydrates, and sugar’).

So, what sort of agua do they put in the beer? Where’s the list of minerals and salts for this leading ingredient that makes up 95% of my tinned cerveza? Is it maybe distilled water we’ve got here?

Back to the helpful IA that attends my every doubt. No, they use mineral water or even tap water. The water gives it taste, apparently. Works for me.

Water features as the first ingredient in any liquid in my fridge – even the horchata or the apple juice. Let’s see… what else did I pick up at the Store?

One of the juices I bought home – I’m a sap for anything new – comes from those good folk at Granini. It’s called Exotic Break (hard for a Spaniard to say) and it tastes like a banana and cherry combo I tried in Germany the other day. Better with a dollop of ice cream.

This juice, and I’ve drained the bottle already, says ‘Pitaya y Guayaba’ on the label, but (once again, my nose is in the small print), the guayaba (guava in English) is third in the ingredients (behind apple) and the pitaya lies in fifth place, just behind sugar and in front of beetroot. Who makes these things up? It’s got to cost the manufacturer a fortune to push a new taste, and how on earth did they come up with the cunning addition of beetroot juice?

Pitaya, by the way, turns out to be dragon fruit (one of those fruit that turns up in the markets after a successful crop, like chirimoyas and membrillos – custard apples and quinces). Like I say, as long as it’s wet.

For those who think I should eat more, let me say here that I get my daily vits and roughage from the little gazpacho and salmorejo bottles available at Mercadona.

It’s odd though. None of those drinks, not even the beer, fail to refresh me as much as a nice cup of tea. Served hot with a squirt of milk and a spoon of sugar. Sometimes, my Englishness still peeps through.

…...

Housing:

From Le Monde (in English) here: ‘Spain's Costa Blanca bears the scars of a real estate frenzy’. The article explores the rise and fall (and rise again?) of the speculators’ dreams for the region and how many hulks and unfinished buildings line the way, with photos.

Majorca Daily Bulletin has ‘Where to bag a bargain property in Mallorca as Spanish property prices reach record levels. Housing is a burning issue prompting protests’.

Idealista (in English) has ‘The most common mistakes when selling a house in Spain. Rising home prices and low mortgage rates are driving fast sales in Spain, but sellers should beware common mistakes that could lower their final price’.

‘Expat Support in Spain is a fully registered association. We have been helping the British in Spain or those with an interest in moving to Spain since the 2016 Brexit but it is time now to extend our help to all foreigners with the same interest in this beautiful country’.

The Catalonian University Phys.org says (in English) ‘Study finds tourist apartments could be converted into social housing in Spain’. We read, ‘The problem of access to housing is not exclusively down to tourism; there are also structural causes. "It's the result of leaving access to housing almost exclusively in the hands of the private sector, the absence of solid social housing policies and the lack of land for residential use in urban areas with growing demand"…’

A promoter explains in El Español one of the problems in the building trade – the old brickies have gone, and the new ones tend to be inexperienced immigrants. They are paid less but they don’t do justice. ‘What's clear is that construction is no longer an attractive job for young people. Greater effort, poor working conditions, and other market options mean that young people have found other more favourable work options and have ended up forgetting about bricklaying’.

…...

Tourism:

The Spanish also enjoy their summer holidays. From El País here, ‘Welcome to the most expensive vacation in history: when going to Mallorca costs as much as traveling to Bali. The tourism sector is experiencing a post-Covid boom with unprecedented price increases for hotels and transportation. More and more Spaniards are choosing to spend their summers abroad because it's cheaper’.

El Economista adds its pennyworth here: ‘The invaders with suitcases are driving Spaniards into the streets: "Wherever you look, it's all foreigners" (they use the word “guiris”)’. The article begins, ‘Last year, 93.8 million foreign tourists visited our country, representing a 10% increase over 2023, a new all-time high, according to data from the INE. The international tourism brought to Spain €126,282 million: an unimaginable amount just a few years ago when the coronavirus pandemic entered our lives. However, the downside is that all these figures are significantly transforming the lives of local residents, fed up with mass tourism on the eve of another summer that is expected to be record-breaking. These dire consequences affect, above all, housing prices, the loss of neighbourhood identity, and the closure of traditional businesses. For this reason, Spain has once again taken to the streets in the form of protests, with demonstrations across much of the country…’

Genbeta says: ‘The new monitoring of Airbnb and Booking.com vacation rentals in Spain reveals that the majority of rentals are in just five autonomous communities: Andalucía, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Catalonia and the Valencian Community, which between them account for 82.22% of active tourist rental requests.

I mean, how dare those tourists? From 20Minutos here, ‘Vacation rentals and the homes of friends and family are absorbing the increase in foreign visitors’. Holiday-makers in both short-term rentals and those who took the guest bedroom each showed an increase of almost 20% this spring over 2024, while at the same time they decreased by 0.8% in hotels. The INE reports that between March and May (!), 24.6 million foreign tourists visited Spain, up 1.7 million over last year, although the hotels fell in the same period by 134,000 foreign tourists. Even so, says the article, the hotels managed 64.2% of the cake. So there’s that.

Sur in English says: ‘Holiday rental property map of the Costa del Sol: numbers continue to grow across Málaga province, except in the city. From January to June, almost 5,000 more tourist accommodation properties were registered with the authorities’.

Sur in English also brings us ‘The minimum equipment required in tourist rental accommodation in Andalucía. Consumo Responde lists the 'must-haves' owners should take into account if they want to register their properties for tourist use’.

One issue circling around tourism is the expenses suffered by staffers to find housing. From El País here: ‘Hotel companies are rushing to provide apartments for their employees. Chains are struggling to recruit staff and are starting to build accommodations to help their employees cope with the housing shortage on the coast’.

El Confidencial says that ‘Overcrowding in certain resorts isn't tourism's fault... it's the residents' fault.  Exceltur (here) says that 88.8% of the increase in people in Spanish destinations is due to local population growth, while the increase in tourists accounts for 11.2%’. The prettier beach-resorts are gathering more residents and then there’s all those souvenir shops and restaurants. We read that ‘Over the past 15 years, 80% of urban tourism capacity growth has been concentrated in tourist accommodation (VUT), with more than 339,000 new spaces created between 2010 and 2025. By May 2025, the number of VUT spaces in Spain reached 1.9 million, surpassing the 1.6 million registered in hotels, according to official data from the INE’.

…...

Finance:

Autónomos (the self-employed) don’t have it easy in Spain. From The I Paper here: ‘We're Brits running our own businesses in Spain - this is the one thing we miss about the UK. Spain's labyrinthine taxation system is a struggle to navigate for the self-employed’. We read: ‘…A spokesman for Hacienda (the Spanish Tax Agency) said: “We have all the main contents in English (on our website) and you can ask for an appointment to discuss subjects affecting (foreign taxpayers in Spain). We also have a separate section on our website for non-residents. Would a Spaniard get the same treatment from the HMRC?”’.

My own experience is that most autónomos are unhappy with the system and, in consequence, most of them support the Partido Popular. The Google AI says there were 3,377,146 self-employed in Spain in March 2025.

…...

Politics:

Last Wednesday (July 9th), Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s answer to Pedro Sánchez’s plans to tighten up the anti-corruption laws was to say that Sánchez’s father-in-law ran gay saunas and that there was nothing worse than Sanchez and his family living from prostitution. The story is one of those exaggerations one finds in the far-right media (OKDiario says ‘Brothels, the word that destroys Sánchez among his colleagues around the world’). The original version of this drivel comes from ‘la policía patriótica’ (Wiki).

Alberto could have talked about the dire economy (except, Spain’s economy is currently the toast of Europe), or maybe the endemic corruption to be found in politics (La Razón contrasts the high number of PP politicians passing through the Soto del Real jail in the last forty years or so against just one, Santos Cerdán, from the PSOE). He could have mentioned his party’s plans for Spain (although they don’t seem to have any). But to describe Sánchez as living off the ill-gotten gains of gay brothels probably brings Feijóo’s chances of taking over the country down to nil. From InfoLibre here: ‘Feijóo attacks Sánchez again on prostitution: "He participated in this abominable business"’, although, says the RTVE here, ‘The PP admits to having no evidence and relies on some journalistic information’. A bit like Judge Peinado with his ever-sillier investigation into Sánchez’ wife.

The PSOE is calling for a judicial investigation into whether Feijóo used bulos (fake news) from the ‘State Sewers’ (another unkind name for the last PP Ministry of the Interior fixers) to attack Sánchez. ‘"If Feijóo took to the podium of the Congress of Deputies with illegally obtained documents, we would be facing an extremely serious incident," the Socialists state’. Opinion from LaSexta here: ‘The dirtiest and most sleazy Feijóo. What will come next will be the usual media barrage of unfounded news, articles with half-truths, and some complete truths seasoned with the intention of linking the president to his father-in-law's professional activities...’. Long story short, Begoña’s late father rented out some places to people who installed saunas. El HuffPost here says ‘In 2024, the Audiencia Nacional (High Court) ruled that the saunas linked to Sánchez's father-in-law were a "lawful private activity". The court also criticized the "deplorable partisan use" of this matter’.

El Mundo has ‘Nine out of ten citizens are concerned about the PSOE corruption, and 43% of Socialists are losing faith in Sánchez. 71% of Spaniards are calling for a vote of confidence, and 43% of Socialists are seeing their support for the government diminish’.

In the midst of all this – a new CIS poll on voting intentions gives a major drop for the PSOE, a small one for the PP and a large rise for the Vox. The numbers are PSOE 27%, PP at 26.5% and Vox at 18.9%. El Huff Post has the story. 

El País opinion here: ‘Alberto Núñez Feijóo must learn English. Three years ago, we warned that his linguistic ignorance was a disadvantage. But at today's European pace, it's already a danger: even worse if he ever manages to climb to power. Learning languages would reduce the time and effort spent on useless endeavours such as resurrecting and shouting out the insinuations of Commissioner Villarejo and the corrupt senior officials of the Interior Ministry with Mariano Rajoy against Pedro Sánchez's (deceased!) father-in-law. And he would be able to focus on developing alternatives instead of empty program statements, albeit full of slogans (throw out squatters, throw out immigrants, throw out nationalists), like the one at the recent PP congress.

But the essential thing is to understand, empathize, negotiate, and reach agreements with the other leaders. Face to face...

If Feijóo had listened to him (and understood him), he would have realized that his rival, Pedro Sánchez, is not isolated but rather one of those who, along with Macron, Meloni, and Merz (better than his leaden predecessor Scholz), have the most influence abroad, down to their command of languages…’

It’s odd that we haven’t heard from the journalist Maribel Vilaplana who was enjoying a leisurely lunch in El Ventorro restaurant with Carlos Mazón on the day Valencia flooded.

…...

Catalonia:

From Catalan News here: ‘Catalonia to collect personal income tax starting January 2026 in new financial model. The Government proposal allows the Catalan government to progressively collect all taxes and it can equally be applied by other autonomous communities’. The ex-president of Aragón is not enthusiastic: ‘Javier Lambán: "The quota is a giant step toward full sovereignty for Catalonia"’, as found at El Heraldo here.

…...

Europe:

From Euobserver here: ‘Trump is working on regime change in Europe — fact, not conspiracy theory’. We read: ‘…this American administration increasingly sees Europe as a political battleground.  It considers elections in Europe — recently in Romania and Poland, and soon in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and, as some speculate, France too — as an opportunity to get European countries governed by far-right leaders with Trumpian agendas.  With those leaders, it wants to forge a ‘civilizational alliance’, one “forged in common culture, faith, family ties, mutual assistance in times of strife, and above all, a shared Western civilizational heritage”’.

On Saturday, CNN published ‘President Donald Trump threatened duties of 30% on products from Mexico and the European Union, two of America’s biggest trading partners, in an ongoing tariff campaign that’s upended global trade since he retook office in January’.

From EuroNews here: ‘EU's population hits record 450 million with numbers driven by migration, Eurostat says’. We read: ‘The EU has recorded more deaths than births annually since 2012, which means migration is the only driver of population growth’.

The Guardian has ‘The right wants us to think Britain is on the verge of ethnic conflict. The truth is worse than that’. An interesting article.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has warned that Spain will not allow the indifference, equidistance, or mere political calculations of some to "make us complicit in the greatest genocide this century has witnessed," referring to Israel's attacks on Gaza. Sánchez, who appeared before Congress for a second plenary session last Wednesday to report on the NATO summit in The Hague, the latest European Council, and the Financing for Development Summit in Seville, stated that what Benjamin Netanyahu's government is doing in Gaza and also in the West Bank is an outrage that will be remembered in history books "as one of the darkest episodes of the 21st century". A video ‘Sánchez accuses Israel of perpetrating "the greatest genocide" of this century’ is on YouTube here.

From The Majorca Daily Bulletin here: ‘Spain wants Britons back in the European Union: could resolve 90-day issue. Majorities in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain would support the UK rejoining’.

From Travel and Tour World here: ‘Spain, Italy, France, Portugal Join Forces in Crackdown on Airbnb Rentals: The Domino Effect Begins’.

…...

Health:

Picking microplastics out of my teeth, I was interested to read: ‘Only one brand of bottled water contains no trace of microplastics, study finds. Twenty-five brands of bottled water distributed in several countries were analysed, finding the invisible particles in thousands of samples (anything up to 240,000 pieces in one litre of water)’. The safe one uses a glass rather than a plastic bottle and is commercialised in the UK (sadly, the brand is not mentioned in the article).

From Bilyonaryo here: ‘The top court in Spain’s northwestern Galicia region has ordered that authorities stamp out pollution linked to intensive pig farming in a landmark case highlighting decades-long environmental mismanagement, a court document showed on Friday. Spain, Europe’s largest pork producer, houses about a third of its pig farms in Galicia. The court found that for some 20,000 residents of the A Limia (Orense) area, the fundamental right to living in a healthy environment had been violated…’

…...

Corruption:

From elDiario.es here: ‘A new line of investigation opens up in the case of Ayuso's partner: "bribery" of a Quirón executive in exchange for increased revenue. The prosecutor alleges that González Amador (Ayuso’s boyfriend) purchased a worthless company from Fernando Camino's wife for half a million euros in exchange for the private health company Quirón Prevención increasing its orders through his stewardship’.

From Computer Hoy here: ‘The first fine for phone spam in Spain thanks to the new law: 5,000 euros for calling a private individual without their consent’.

…...

Courts:

Judge Peinado is so obsessed with Begoña Gómez that, without realizing it (no doubt) he's missed deadlines for other important cases, which in consequence have been dropped. The first, against a director of the Madrid Transport Company. The second one was the case against the IM Academy crypto-cult, a pyramid scheme from 2019. Another disastrous Judge Peinado story, this time from Europa Press: ‘The Supreme Court rules out investigating the Justice Minister Félix Bolaños in the Begoña Gómez case due to the "absolute absence" of evidence’. El Plural asks its readers: should Judge Peinado be fired? 97% say ‘yes’.

…...

Racism:

While I’m writing something silly about fruit juice, the foul Vox machine has been heating up the racism card. Last week, their spokesperson Rocío de Meer was on about deporting the eight million foreigners living and working here (and turning Spain into, once again, a Christian nation, a bit behind the times perhaps, but with everyone knowing their place). Now, in one of those towns where there are lots of North African labourers, in Murcia (a fertile province for those who hear voxes), there have been several days of riots in Torre Pacheco(population 41,600 of which around 11,500 are foreign workers - Wiki). The issue comes from local and imported troublemakers following an incident last week where an elderly local person was beaten by a local Moorish kid with a rock, with his two friends watching, to put something on TikTok. A video of a totally different event, occurring in Almería, originally found its way to the social media. ‘The person who was beaten and appears in the video released by the neo-Nazis Alvise, Desokupa, Frente Obrero, Vox, and their media apparatus is named as José Moya. He's a sin-techo (a beggar) from Almería which is where this event occurred. In reality, the two boys who beat him are Spanish and are now in prison’.

elDiario.es says ‘Over the weekend, brigades of dozens of extremists have deployed violently through the streets of this town with the intention of "hunting" immigrants. Their pretext? That a 68-year-old man was beaten last week. Initially, it was said that the attackers were a group of Moroccans; now, the story is that the attacker was a young man and his two friends hoping to film an example of ‘Happy Slapping’ (a Moroccan youth was later arrested while attempting to escape to France). With that, with a single action, denounced and xenophobically described by Vox as if it were almost an act of war, an entire operation of collective violence has been fabricated, which has received reinforcements from outside the town…’ By Monday, ten people had been arrested, another thirty had been fined and a further eighty identified by the police. Many of them coming in from elsewhere to participate.

Newtral wades through the various fictions here. A video of ultras attacking a kebab store while the police look on in Torre Pacheco is here. From El Plural here: ‘The Vox leader in Murcia, José Ángel Antelo, maintained that Spain should be a country "for those who come to work and respect its laws," and called for stricter enforcement and deportation policies. "We don't want people like that on our streets or in our country. We're going to deport them all: not a single one will remain. People come to Spain to work and generate wealth, not to commit crimes or spread terror"’. (He’s now being investigated by the courts for ‘the crime of hatred’ says El Salto here).

For Santiago Abascal (seen here shockingly dressed as a concentration camp commandant in a mock-up video from minute 3.14 made with material from ‘Deport Them Now’ in an Italian exposé) and his extremist party, it’s all good. La Marea has more here.

Deport Them Now is explained at EOLaPaz here: ‘On the fringes of social media, where algorithms reward outrage and misinformation, the "Deport Them Now" group emerged in 2021. This transnational platform quickly transformed from a mere hashtag into a structured xenophobic movement. With roots in Anglo-Saxon far-right forums and connections to European identity movements, its message is clear: the mass expulsion of immigrants is the only solution to Europe's "problems" of security, unemployment, and cultural identity’’…’

From elDiario.es here: ‘experts consulted by elDiario.es about the Deport Them Now group agree that it "is suspicious." They emphasize that it is "well organized," and one suggests that it could be the result of astroturfing, a manipulation strategy that consists of simulating a spontaneous citizen movement when in reality it is directed by those with specific interests. This is a common tactic in political and digital propaganda: feigning popular support for a cause, when that support is actually inflated or outright fabricated, in order to gain legitimacy and amplify its impact.’

elDiario.es has: ‘Late on Monday, the Guardia Civil arrested a Spaniard in Catalonia accused of leading the Telegram group "Deport Them Now," which is accused of calling for migrant hunts in Torre Pacheco. According to sources from the Ministry of the Interior, the channel has been shut down and the case is being handled by an investigating court in San Javier (Murcia). Officers also seized two computers’.

From Robando Tu Tiempo here: ‘The bulo of the small government handouts and the selective memory of a country that also emigrated. Few hoaxes have penetrated the collective imagination as deeply as the one that immigrants come to Spain "to live off small allowances". A mantra repeated ad nauseam by the far right, amplified on social media and in bars, and defended without data by parties like Vox, whose discourse is based on fear, misinformation, and xenophobia. But when this narrative is compared with the data, there is no other possible conclusion: it is flatly false…’

Onda Cero says: This is what would happen in Spain if immigration disappeared. Spain is not experiencing an invasion, but rather a relationship of functional interdependence with the countries of the global south. In other words, what is presented as a problem is, in reality, a structural necessity’.

From El HuffPost here: ‘The impossible promise to deport eight million people: "It would be social and economic suicide". Vox's proposal violates fundamental rights and would lead Spain to ruin with a sharp drop in production and a blow to the pension system’.

By Wednesday night, despite calls for ‘action’ and with a heavy Guardia Civil presence, the excitement in Torre Pacheco was largely over.

A far more disturbing attack by a recent Moroccan immigrant (he was already due to be returned to that country) occurred this Wednesday morning in Tenerife, where he set on fire an underage girl, who is now in hospital with 95% burns. The question for the Voxers, of course, is… is she Spanish or is she Moroccan? It will make a huge difference to them.

…...

Media:

Público has a laugh at some of the senior Vox members, who appear to have rather un-Spanish last names. Rocío de Meer, Javier Ortega-Smith, Hermann Tertsch and then there’s the vice-president of Vox, Ignacio Garriga (Wiki). No doubt they have all been forgiven.

The fact-finding page Newtral warns us to ‘Beware of Fernanda Pérez's account (P1nk News), the AI-generated 'woman' spreading hoaxes about Spanish politics’. We read ‘The YouTube and TikTok user 'P1nk News' claims to be Fernanda Pérez and claims to seek to "uncover the truth that the government wants to hide." However, the content spreads false and unsubstantiated messages, and the "woman" narrating them is an AI-generated avatar...’ However, as always, we viewers or readers will only believe what we want to believe…

Público has ‘An alliance of extremist groups cannibalizes the public prosecution and turns the Supreme Court into a mere duty court. Some forty groups with far-right ideology and connections have been flooding the courts with complaints for years. Manos Limpias, HazteOír and Abogados Cristianos are just the most well-known…’ Abogados Cristianos, by the way, declared more than half a million euros in profits in 2022, the year they filed seventy one lawsuits.

From El Huff Post here: ‘The PP meets with foreign media correspondents to discuss Sánchez's father-in-law's saunas’. No summer holidays for some…

A far-right TV show, Horizontes on La Cuatro, expressed outrage last week regarding the corruption of Sánchez and the PSOE: ‘I can't understand why the streets aren't on fire. I'm stupefied, fellow citizens who are at home watching this program. This is barricades, like the French Revolution, damn it. This is like May '68. We should take to the streets because the shamelessness and contradictions are such... (etc.)’.

…...

Ecology:

From the Aemet, the weather-agency here: ‘June 2025 was the most anomalously warm month in Spain on record. The average temperature, 23.7°C, was 3.6°C higher than the reference period average, making it the most anomalously warm month on record, surpassing October 2022. It was also a dry month, with rainfall only 68% of the normal average’.

…...

Various:

“From space, you can see the Great Wall of China, the Himalayas and also the Orcera pool”, says the lyrics of the song that the singer Zahara dedicated to the great Amurjo swimming pool, in Orcera (Jaén), a huge backwater with four million litres of water, surrounded by pine trees and embedded in an idyllic natural setting…’. Eye in Spain has the story here.

‘While the cement heats up and buying a ticket to the municipal pool online feels like searching for a Taylor Swift concert, a new summer business has emerged: hourly rentals of private gardens or swimming pools. What was once a privilege, inheritance, luck, or "I have a friend who" is now an exclusive service. The Airbnbs of the pool have been born...’

Sur in English has the welcome news of ‘Relief at the reopening of the Ronda-San Pedro road: 'After four months of two-hour detours, it is heaven'.  Commuters, tourists, transport drivers, bikers, cyclists and even the 309 bus service from Marbella to the Serranía are back on the A-397 that links this part of inland Málaga province with the Costa del Sol’.

While European politicians – generally speaking – appear to be keeping quiet about the events occurring on the other end of the Mediterranean, we are witness to all kinds of protest down at the citizens’ level. Right now, various pop groups have pulled out of the FIB pop concerts planned in Benicasim (Castellón) for later this week (here). The reason is that the organisers, KKR, are linked to the Israeli State. Califato ¾, Mushkaa, Camellos, Residente, Judeline and La Bien Querida have all cancelled.

…...

See Spain: 

From El Mundo here: ‘This is the smallest town in Andalucía: in the province of Almería, with just 59 inhabitants. Benitagla, 60 kilometres from the capital, has just two monuments (a church and a small tower) and a single bar.

NatGeo brings us to La Pobla de Lillet – a town an hour and a half from Barcelona with waterfalls and a little-known Gaudí garden "that outlines a naturalistic architecture".

‘The Spanish castle on the banks of a river with a museum in its tower: it was built on the remains of a Bronze Age castle. Its location dates back thousands of years, as it is the fourth fortress to be built on the site. Furthermore, its walls and architecture make it one of the most impressive in the region’. We are in El Castillo de Valencia de Don Juan in the province of León. Infobae has some good pictures here.

Paul Whitelock writes in Eye on Spain about his home-town of Ronda (Málaga) here.

…...

Letters:

In the past, I certainly had more pleasure in reading Lenox' newsletter. We have all lived a loooong time in Spain and certainly know a lot more about this country than his typical subscriber. I used to enjoy Lenox' letters, but now they more and more leave me with the strong impression of being written for gringos who know very little of the country they have selected to live in. His political preference is also too clear to give an objective assessment on many issues. I certainly will not renew my subscription whenever it comes up.

Ivar.

Dear Ivar,

I'm sorry you feel this way.

There probably won't be much political stuff for the next six weeks until the Cortes resumes in late August. (Later: apart from the Torre Pacheco riots).

I'm already planning a silly editorial for this week about fruit juice.

I spend a lot of time monitoring the Spanish media, looking for items of interest - both for me and for my readers. I would imagine that some would be of more interest to readers, with others of less or no interest. Que vamos a hacer.

I'm aware that most of my subscribers can't vote in Spain and, if they could, would probably vote for the PP. The BoT also appears in/on a few Spanish websites which are read by a different crowd.

Best wishes and enjoy your summer,

Lenox

…...

Finally:

Here’s Alicia Fernández with Mi Acento Andaluz on YouTube (Thanks to J-Antonio).