There’s more to Spain than hot weather and English breakfasts
AS THE bow wave of gaudy car showrooms, Lidls and agricultural co-operatives flashes past the motorhome on its way to the French border, it’s time to reflect on our months coasteering around Spain.
Prior to this extended visit, Spain had always seemed to me to be one of Europe’s least interesting countries, but one we’re drawn to chiefly because of the weather.
Gravitate towards its Costa hotspots and you’re probably guaranteed a fortnight of sunshine, and who wouldn’t want that after another unreliable British summer?
But if you anchor yourself to places like Benidorm, Torremolinos and Lloret, you’ll only see a vision of Spain created for (and largely by) the British, the Germans and the Dutch.
On the beaches, you’ll rarely hear any Spanish spoken; the frontline bars and restaurants offer almost exclusively northern European drinks and menus and in the identikit urbanizaciones fringing the towns – all thrown up in the first frenzy of cheap flights we enjoyed in the ‘90s – a whole golden generation of ex-pats have created homes from home, complete with bowling greens, British Legions, pub quizzes and tennis clubs.
In the 40 or 50 years that we’ve been colonising Spain, the country has emerged from under the fascist rule of Franco, falteringly embraced democracy and the return of the monarchy and taken its place at the heart of the European experiment.
There have been boom times along the way, especially when it comes to property and infrastructure, but the austerity of recent years has left a noticeable scar on the country.
While the superficial bling of Marbella still retains a thin sheen of allure, we met enough people packing their things and preparing to return home to suggest the dream for some lotus eaters has soured.
When the lack of meaningful work meets an endless expectation to flash the cash, something’s got to give eventually.
Ten years ago, in popular ex-pat haunts like Estepona on the Costa del Sol, there was an almost tangible air of entrepreneurial fever; now, the little boutiques and chic bars just off the main drag have shut down and the smell of decay there is as bad as it is elsewhere in Spain.
Even apparently magnificent, shining cities like Valencia have just a core of affluence.
Turn a corner in the old town and the back alleys are crumbling, dark and empty, while its awe-inspiring arts and science park on the southern edge already feels like something created by a genius, bankrolled by a lunatic and approved by a megalomaniac.
Right along the east coast, from Almeria up to Barcelona, there are towns and cities whose civic leaders allowed themselves to be seduced by the euphoria of cheap money available in the early part of this century.
In Benidorm, they built Intempo, what was Europe’s tallest occupied building, or would be if it wasn’t empty.
A symbol of greed and folly, it looks down forlornly on the grubbier hotels and bars still surviving as long as enough ex-pats patronise them.
But there are less fashionable gems along the same coast which are positively bustling with a genuine vibrancy, like Calpe, Sitges, Tossa and Tamariu, and probably hundreds more, thriving all year round, maybe precisely because they’re not Benidorm or Lloret. In Seville, too, tucked away towards the Portuguese border, we found an astonishingly diverse city that’s found its niche. While undeniably Spanish – and old-school Spanish at that – it manages to combine a flamenco-rich heritage with any number of cosmopolitan influences. There are areas of Seville, particularly along the river, which call to mind Paris and just outside the city, in Triana, you’re reminded of nothing less than Greenwich Village in New York.
On a hot night in June we almost expected to see yellow cabs on the streets and kids playing with fire hydrants.
Here’s a place, we thought, that the whole of Europe should come to for a city break.
Inevitably, we’ll return to Spain, probably to spend the winter, but we’ll count our blessings that we’ll be mobile and ready to move on at the first sign of a bar offering a “full English breakfast”.
There’s so much more to this country than that.
Next time: Bonjour France