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This is yours truly with another episode of some news from Spain !!! thanks to you all. There is lots of things going on in my beloved Spain, and we are approaching Summer and already very hot over 30C ! I am eagerly looking forward to be back to Spain too !! Let me tell you the latest tidbits of news chosen by yours truly, By the way CXLIX is old Roman for 149, Enjoy it as Spain is everything under the Sun!

The Mad Cool festival, which was held from July 6 to 8,2023 in the ‘New Madrid festival site’ located in the Marconi neighborhood, in the Madrid district of Villaverde, Calle Laguna Dalga with Avenida Real de Pinto. It will have 185,000 square meters, where eight stages will be displayed. in order to add resources and create a benchmark, open, creative and green artistic space, a place of cultural development at a European level, which will transform the area, a key point for a public aware and lover of culture, art and music , attracting quality tourism, sustainable and respectful of the environment. This site has two nearby Cercanías and one Metro station, Villaverde Alto and San Cristóbal Industrial, and several bus lines. The ‘Los Espartales’ area, with its own Metrosur stop near the Coliseum Alfonso Pérez in Getafe, is close to the new Mad Cool enclosure. Mad Cool Festival 2023 made up of 101 bands, with names as relevant as The Black Keys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lizzo, Mumford and Sons, Queens of the Stone Age, Ava Max, Sam Smith, The 1975, Nova Twins, Robbie Williams , Lil Nas X, Kaleo, Morgan, Franz Ferdinand, Tash Sultana, Paolo Nutini, Rina Sawayama, Jamie XX, Primal Scream, Machine Gun Kelly, among others. webpage: https://madcoolfestival.es/

The Summer festivals multiply throughout our geography, with a special role for our Golden Age, Some take advantage of their own history as an excuse: Alcalá, birthplace of Cervantes; Olmedo, the town where Lope de Vega placed one of his most famous works. Others polish their monumental spaces, such as the Grec (Greek Theater in Barcelona, built for the 1929 Universal Exposition), Olite (Castle, from the 13-14C), Sagunto (Roman Theatre, from AD 50) , Cáceres (historic center). And others are simply celebrated for the sake of it, such as the Palma del Río Theater Fair (Córdoba) or the San Javier Festival (Murcia). Almagro is a contest created around its historic Corral de Comedias, the only fully preserved example of a 17C theater of this type, the festival boasts, since, at present, it continues to maintain the original structure of the corrals of Comedies of the Golden Age. In its forty-sixth edition, its director, Irene Pardo, debuts, who says that “it will be the festival of coexistence between the classic and the contemporary, where heritage and tradition do not compete with the present, it will be a space where emotion meets the reflection, where craft meets experimentation and where artists and audiences meet head-on» The International Classical Theater Festival of Mérida, structured mainly around the magnificent Roman Theatre, recovered for the stage in 1933 by the legendary actress Catalan Margarita Xirgu. The contest, directed since 2012 by the producer Jesús Cimarro, celebrates its 69th edition, which will begin with a concert by the Zaragoza Auditorium Chamber Orchestra – ‘Grupo Enigma’, which will perform ‘Oresteïa (Orestíada)’, by Iannis Xenakis. the Cáceres Classic Theater Festival, which celebrates its thirty-fourth edition, and the XXII Ibero-American Festival of the Golden Age of the Community of Madrid. Classics in Alcalá. Main festival webpages: The Almagro Festival : https://www.festivaldealmagro.com/el-festival-de-almagro-inicia-una-nueva-etapa/

The Merida festival : https://www.festivaldemerida.es/en/the-festival/roman-theatre/

The unknown photographic legacy of Jorge Palomo Durán, brought to light one hundred years later The exhibition, now open to the public, recovers the visual legacy of an engineer and photographer who portrayed Spain at the beginning of the 20th century The historical archives keep memories of the numerous and important projects in which he intervened as Civil Engineer, Canals and Ports. The newspaper archives, in turn, keep reviews of the performances of the former theater director and even an amateur singer. Entities as diverse as the Aero Club Popular, the Ateneo Riojano, the Logroño Concert Society, the Logroño City Council, the Free Association for the Defense of Spanish Urban Property or the Rotary Club of said city, for example, keep in their memories the contributions of this versatile character, Webpage info :https://salaamossalvador.com/exposicion/un-fotografo-inesperado/

On a trip through the unprecedented Barcelona of Dora Maar, An exhibition recovers the photographs that the artist took in 1933 during her stay in Catalonia, September 1933. A Dora Maar still in her twenties arrives in Barcelona and stays at the Hotel Oriente. At the foot of Rambla, in the heart of the city. She travels alone, although not entirely: her camera accompanies her, the same one that years later will immortalize, step by step, the process of creating ‘Guernica’. For that, however, there are still a few years to go. What’s more: Henriette Theodora Markovitch has not even met Picasso yet, so no one shadows her. Not yet. In 1931, the young Parisian has already opened a studio with set designer Pierre Kéfer, so everything in her career is new and promising. An almost brand new life that Maar ties to photography and that leads him to portray street life in Paris, London and, of course, also Barcelona. Maar arrived in Barcelona in 1933 and she left Barcelona with a handful of photos that had remained unaccounted for until not too long ago. Specifically, until last year, when a box full of negatives arrived at the Artcurial auction house in Paris and the National Archive of Catalonia was able to acquire some modern printings. In total, fifty images of Barcelona and the Costa Brava that are on display until July 20 in Sant Cugat del Vallès. In addition to the Catalan capital, Maar also traveled to Tossa de Mar and S’Agaró, where, in addition to capturing delicious costumbrista images, she met with artists and intellectuals who had made the Costa Brava the setting for her creation. There were, for example, Georges Charensol, Henry de Monfreid and Georges Kars, whom Ella Marr portrayed before heading back to Paris. Webpage : https://anc.gencat.cat/en/detall/article/Textos-de-lexposicio-00001

Thirty or forty years ago in Alquézar (Somontano region, Huesca) there were barely a hundred residents left, many houses were in ruins, and the bed of the Vero river, boxed in at the foot of the town, was that place where young people (few) They did not go to take a bath when the heat was very hot, nor of course the Muslim troops that went here from Alquézar to Barbastro (the same path that the Aragonese men later used in the reconquest) could never imagine the multitude of tourists that fill the streets every weekend. streets of a completely rehabilitated town, gleaming under the sun to make one of the most popular and affordable canyoning in the Pyrenees. And many others go directly to the entrance of the old path, next to the square and the Town Hall, where over the years one of the most popular footbridge routes between canyons in Spain grew. The Ruta de las pasarelas has three well-differentiated sections, which in total require a little more than two hours of bearable effort. The first section is the descent through the Barranco de la Fuente from Alquézar to the river. In the second we already began to step on the metal walkways that replaced in 2003 the old concrete structure used by the employees of the plant in the mid-20C. The third is the most modern, inaugurated in 2015, where the walkways rise between five and twenty meters above the Vero riverbed. There are others, however, who look at Alquézar at the beginning of the 1980s, when the town was dying on a forgotten hill, under the omnipresent gaze of the Collegiate Church of Santa María la Mayor, and see in this tourism the reason for the rebirth of the town. Webpage :https://pasarelasdealquezar.com/

With an annual influx of almost three million people, the national park of Las Cañadas del Teide (as an anecdote my maternal and paternal grandparents are from Pajarà and Candelaria we have words in Guanche and teide means mountain of fire, of course a volcano and sacred site of our ancestors), declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2007 with the category of Natural Assets, is the most visited in Spain, in Europe and the fourth in the world. The Las Cañadas cirque, a gigantic caldera 17 km in diameter, serves as the seat of Teide (3,718 m.), the highest in Spain, the third highest volcano on the planet from its base -only behind Mauna Kea ( 4,205 m) and Mauna Loa (4,170 m), in Hawaii- and the main tourist attraction of the park. the splendid red tajinaste, which can reach three meters in height, and the heroic violet of Teide, a shrub with a delicate appearance and unusual strength, which grows above 2,500 m above sea level. Humboldt, the great German traveler and scientist, who visited the island of Tenerife in 1799 and reached the top of the mountain, even descending into its crater, was astonished. «Contemplating a magnificent landscape -he would write later- supposes one of the greatest satisfactions for the soul. The peak of Teide is for me the clearest example of the beauty and grandeur of Creation”. The path that leads to the top starts from the Montaña Blanca car park, either in a six-hour round-trip walk in a single day or by spending the night at the Altavista refuge (3,200 m.) to leave at dawn after meeting the sun at the summit. The alternative is the cable car. For both options, the last 200 m. Today they are restricted and a permit is required to use the Telesforo Bravo trail and reach the Pilón de Azúcar, where you can see the 80-meter-diameter crater expelling sulfurous vapors. Webpage : https://www.miteco.gob.es/en/parques-nacionales-oapn/red-parques-nacionales/parques-nacionales/teide/

The latest restoration of the painter’s engravings will allow us to see the original traces on the metal plates, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid has removed the nickel and steel coatings that protected 101 of the pieces from the corrosion they caused on the original plate of Francisco Goya’s engravings they have returned to their first life, to the one that the painter made with his hands directly on the copper. The plates containing these images can be seen just as the author conceived them thanks to the restoration that the Academy of Fine Arts is carrying out, financed by the Fundación Ibercaja. For years these parts have been plated with steel, nickel, and chrome, Academy webpage : https://www.realacademiabellasartessanfernando.com/noticias/academia/conservacion-de-las-laminas-de-goya/

Pablo Picasso reflected in El Greco’s mirror at the Prado Museum In an intense and synthetic exhibition, the Museum underscores the influence of the Cretan master in the period of analytical cubism from Malaga, perhaps the most radical and fleeting moment of his painting At 17 Years ago, when he was studying at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Picasso broke into the Museo del Prado for the second time (the first was in 1895, at the age of 14). He made the regulatory zigzag through the rooms and after the usual ones a beautiful story that can be repeated, by the visitors, Prado webpage: https://www.museodelprado.es/en/whats-on/exhibition/picasso-el-greco-and-analytical-cubism/29c209f0-0268-4733-94e1-61cdcba92124

On the 125th anniversary of the poet’s birth, we visit the corners of his land that marked his life and work. From the house where he came into the world to a dramatized route or the Víznar ravine, where he was killed. This is the route of Federico Garcia Lorca, the best of Spain! It doesn’t matter if one is in Fuente Vaqueros, where he came into the world just 125 years ago (on June 5, 1898), or on Calle San Matías street in Madrid, where he attended piano classes, or in the Víznar ravine , 18 km from Granada, where his remains are supposedly buried. His early years were spent between Fuente Vaqueros and Valderrubio at the beating of cats, patios, neighbors, cousins, hand-woven harlequin cushions, books and gramophones, to cite one small string of memories ,The birthplace of Fuente Vaqueros, located on the street that now bears his name, has been the scene of a striking graffiti with images of him with a bow tie and a piano as well as a hummingbird, the one from his poem Gazelle of unexpected love. It is the work of the local artist El niño de las pinturas (the child of the paintings) and covers the rear façade. The games would continue in Valderrubio among poplar trees , In that big house, full of nooks and crannies, with a high step at the entrance, the ceilings of the rooms are still painted blue and the piano that cousin Clotilde donated dominates the great room. On the walls are lithographs from the Nordic countries and the print of the Christ of the Moclín Cloth, whose pilgrimage stars in the final scene of Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba. Not surprisingly, the latter was located a few meters away, on Calle Real (formerly, Ancha), right next to Aunt Matilde’s, with whom he shared a patio and well. From there he would listen to the dramas of the daughters of Frasquita Alba, the real Bernarda, the Lorca universe always in black from her statue on the boulevard of Avenida de la Constitución, which was not raised until 70 years after his execution. . In between, you pass by the Federico García Lorca cultural center, whose building is shaped like an open book. Also by the Chikito bar (formerly, Café de la Alameda), where the El Rinconcillo gathering led by the writer was held. The I Cante Jondo Contest, which took place in the Plaza de los Aljibes in 1922. He also stops in front of the Arco de las Cucharas, where the beginning of Mariana Pineda is located. And by the cathedral, although He didn’t like it at all because of its excessiveness, he said that it broke the spirit of Granada. The route ends at El rincón de Lorca, the restaurant with themed dinners that includes a theatrical show around the author and his contemporaries such as Dalí between courses, It is located in the old house of the Rosales family on Calle Ángulo street, the poet’s last refuge before being arrested in August 1936. From there he would go to the current Faculty of Law, headquarters of the Natinalists, and then to Víznar. Lorca World webpage :https://www.universolorca.com/en/

In recent years, Lavapiés has become one of the most interesting gastronomic neighborhoods in Madrid. Next to restaurants and gastrobars of all kinds of cuisines and up-to-date, there are traditional cafeterias, traditional taverns, terraces to see and be seen, all-terrain venues… Pleasant and diverse venues for breakfast or snacks, from the typical churros with chocolate even the so fashionable toast with avocado. Calle Argumosa deserves a special mention, popularly known as Bulevar de Lavapiés, where many terraces come together which, in the warmer months, are crowded with people coming out of the nearby theaters or gathering strength after a Sunday morning at the nearby Trace. Some to recommend are: Taberna Tirso de Molina, on its façade its tile panels decorated with paintings by the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and its Art Nouveau-style signs stand out, but don’t be fooled by these French expressions, because its cuisine focuses on recipes traditional Spanish. It has a terrace right next to the flower shops that dot the Plaza de Tirso de Molina, so it also pleases the eye. Plaza de Tirso de Molina, 9. Café Pavón, the Pavón Theater was inaugurated in April 1925 with the performance of the play Don Quintín, el amargao. Currently the room has an interesting theatrical and musical program, but, in addition, you can have breakfast or a snack in its cafeteria. Be sure to admire the coffered ceiling, original from 1924, and the tiles that Anasagasti himself, the architect of the initial café, ordered to decorate the walls. Calle de Embajadores, 9. El Económico, this emblematic establishment in Lavapiés, founded in 1948, works mainly as a restaurant, although you can also go for breakfast both in its lounge and on its terrace, when the weather is good. And, to honor its name, say that its prices are quite reasonable, for how the center of Madrid has become. Calle Argumosa, 9. Café Barbieri, despite the fact that it has been remodeled, this centenary establishment -opened in 1902- maintains its original moldings, the iron columns, the checkered floor, the mirrors, the sconces and the marble and iron tables . The walls of this place still remember the visits of Federico García Lorca when he visited Madrid or the filming of the film El Sur (1983), by Víctor Erice. Calle Ave María, 45. Donde da la vuelta el viento Where the wind turns, is a traditional bar adapted to today’s tastes. Its façade is striking, in blue and white decorated with drawings of all kinds of drinks. Calle Mesón de Paredes, 81. La Chulapa in Mayrit, also known as La Casa de las Pelotas, this traditional-style tavern has an interesting exhibition of photos of Madrid at the beginning of the century. Calle del Doctor Fourquet, 37. Madrid tourist office on Lavapiés :https://www.esmadrid.com/en/madrid-neighbourhoods/lavapies

An exclusive downtown location, a historic building and an infamous past. With these letters the game began, the project of opening a luxury hotel of the Hilton chain on the famous Calle Montera in Madrid, the former cradle of street prostitution and decadent shops. The Hotel Montera Madrid is already a reality and in style, so much so that it has become the emblem of the comprehensive renovation that this vibrant area of the capital is experiencing. It occupies a hundred-year-old building -built in 1924- with ten floors at number 47 of this controversial road, where there were several hostels and, previously, the Praktik and Metropol hotels. The brand new five-star hotel has 93 rooms, eight of them suites, with an average price of 300 euros per night. In addition, it has a restaurant, three terraces and a rooftop with a designer pool and a cocktail bar that is also traditional, as it is in the hands of the Museo Chicote. One f its peculiarities, in addition to this ‘rooftop’ as a new afternoon and meeting point in the area, is that the reception is located on the ninth floor, the same as Le Braserí, with capacity for 120 diners.On this ninth floor thre are two terraces with impressive views towards the Gran Vía or the bustling Montera itself. On the roof, with a 360º panoramic view, the pool stands out with its tiled floor giving life to a flower and the Balinese beds that surround it. Yes, yes, an anecdote is that when I brought the then girlfriend Martine to visit Madrid in 1990 by here and seeing those women in shorts on Montera street, he told me “But that’s out of place to dress like that in broad daylight” And I answered her « They dress like that because is their job » Lol !!! finally she undestood !! Glad the area is been sanitize….webpage: https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/mademqq-hotel-montera-madrid/

The III Edition of the National Pizza Contest, organized by Madrid Fusión Alimentos de España 2023 by D.O. Rueda begins its journey with news for its followers. Still weeks away from the final of the contest something that will happen on June 26, 2023, it is already possible to know which are the 100 best pizzas in Spain, First by Galicia :A Coruña, La Saporita in Lugo La pizzeria di Toto and in Pontevedra La bella Napoli 1970, In the Valencian Community : La Vecchia Roma, from Denia, and Infraganti and Da Filippo, both from Alicante, Valencia is home to the other three chosen pizzerias: Pizzería Raices, Il Cortile and Viva Napoli, the only pizzeria in Valencia that makes the classic Italian dish meter long. Castilla y León has Pizzeria Venecia, and Sapori di Napoli in Aranda de Duero, andin Palencia Pizzeria Kuro , and Ponte Vecchio, in Valladolid. Castilla – La Mancha hasMarquinetti, in Ciudad Real, Pizca in Guadalajara and Pastucci in Toledo, a chain backed by almost 40 years. My dear Madrid has 34 ,all of them located in the capital with the exception of one, 500 Crust Pizza ,in Pozuelo de Alarcón, The others Can Pizza ,Grosso Napoletano, Mola Pizza, Totó, Araldo Arte del Gusto and La Cúpula, amongst many, In the Canary Islands, Oro di Napoli located in Tenerife, specifically in Los Cristianos. In Aragón 22.2 Gradi and Pizzería da Claudio, both in Zaragoza. More info webpage : https://www.revistahosteleria.com/texto-diario/mostrar/4323580/madrid-fusion-alimentos-espana-by-do-rueda-presenta-100-mejores-pizzas-espana

Joël Robuchon was born on April 7, 1945. A stubborn ‘Aries’ who was inoculated with the monastic ‘Ora et labora’ when faith almost conquered cooking at the seminary in Mauléon-sur-Sèvres ,a picturesque corner of Nouvelle Aquitaine region of France, It has been filming for half a year in Madrid, in one of the most emblematic places in the city, and has several spaces. Among them, a terrace and a secret ‘speakeasy’ in which to end the nights, The Sala de L’Atelier Robuchon in Madrid, the most gastronomic space in Robuchon Madrid, Webpage : https://jrobuchon.com/en/restaurant/madrid/l-atelier-robuchon

And I close with the Guia Repsol (equivalent to Michelin France) for the best restaurants in my dear Spain :https://www.guiarepsol.com/es/soles-repsol/soles-2023/nuevos-restaurantes-un-sol-guia-repsol-2023/#

There you go folks, another dandy tour of my beloved Spain ! We are almost in Summer !! Time to enjoy my some news from Spain  once again, and we are gear up for it! Hope you enjoy the post as I.

And remember ,happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all !!!