Spain

In Spain you can eat all day — and we did. Earlier in the summer, I spent two days in Andalusia, and most of the forty-eight hours were taken up by mealtimes. A breakfast of the sweet porridge poleá started the day, then ham-tasting for a mid-morning snack followed by a two-hour lunch. I didn’t think it was possible to eat all day, but when the food is this good and meticulously chosen, it is. Spanish chef José Pizarro led the way, taking us to his favorite restaurants and showing us where he sources the ham and caviar for his own.

If I’d known what a whole monkfish looks like, I would never have ordered it. It was only weeks later that I saw a picture of the horrid creature: small, wicked eyes, prehistoric head, skin like rusty medieval armor and a gaping mouth overflowing with jagged teeth. Truly the stuff of nightmares. We’d popped over the border from France into San Sebastián, Spain, for a bite of dinner, selecting a spot a stone’s throw from the Baroque exuberance of Santa Maria del Coro. The daily special was monkfish, and for some reason — perhaps an excess of sun that day — the image that came to mind was, inaccurately, that of the innocent red mullet. The daily special in a fishing town is bound to be fresh, so it seemed fair to give it a try.

“You are Kevin?” “Pardon?” Embarking on a solo week driving around Mallorca, then losing my drivers license in transit? Not my finest hour. A fairytale wedding near the citrus grove-laden seaside town of Sollér brought me to the largest island of the Baleriacs. A chest infection, some big deadlines and three hotels to review an hour’s drive south of the venue inspired me to hire a car, so I could pootle around at my own pace. I realized my problem in Barcelona, waiting for my connecting flight. Paying for a coffee, I spotted my license was missing. I’d booked via OMIO (a journey planning site that pulls together trains, planes, ferries and coaches — I love that thing), which I quickly consulted to confirm the dearth of public transport on the island.

Early on in his biography of the novelist Kingsley Amis, Zachary Leader quotes a hilariously misanthropic letter Amis wrote to the poet Philip Larkin, one of his closest friends. Amis, at the time in his early thirties, was complaining about a three-month stint he and his family – including his son Martin, then five years old - spent abroad, as required by the terms of the Somerset Maugham Prize, which he won in 1955 for his first novel, Lucky Jim (Martin would also win it in 1973 for his debut, The Rachel Papers).

It was an extraordinary sight. For three days, and about seventy kilometers of hiking, there were just endless olive trees covering the fields, hills and mountains stretching to the horizon of the small Spanish province of Jaén. Tucked away in the southern region of Andalusia, this is the country’s powerhouse of olive-oil production. Many people assume Italy or Greece are the largest producers of olive oil. That’s a result of good branding and name recognition, a Jaén-based olive grower told me. After he pulled up alongside me in his dusty car, we walked through the endless olive groves as I was given a tutorial on olive oil production. Spain is the world’s top producer of olive oil.

When you hear the word flamenco you probably think of a lady dancing in a polka-dot dress, stomping her feet, accompanied by guitars and singing. And in the fair capital of Andalucía, Seville, you would have no problem finding such a sight. All across the old town, around the cathedral and in the lee of its 12-century minaret turned cathedral bell-tower, glamorous flamenco dancers are busy at it, stirring up passion on the cobbled streets and in the city-centre tourist shows. There’s no denying such flamenco demonstrations will raise your pulse and the tourists, not surprisingly, love them.