(c) March 2013 Oliver Bonten
Andalucía 2013
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Andalucía 2013
March 2013 256 |
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Where to go, when you have until March 31st to clear three weeks of leftover leave from the previous year? Instead of flying to the tropics, we studied climate charts and the apple blossom isochrones for Europe, which showed us that European spring starts early in the southwest of the Iberian peninsula, in southern Portugal and Andalucía. It takes one more month until the eastern mediterranean has the same temperatures. Andalucía promises a lot of sights, natural and historic, so we decided to spend the time there.
For centuries, when people talked of Spain, they mostly meant Andalucía. Al-Andalus was the name of the Iberian peninsula during Moorish time, and it was most of the time ruled from Córdoba. Isabella and Ferdinand completed the reconquista in Granada. The country which set Columbus on his voyages was ruled from Sevilla. And the ships from South America landed their immeasurable wealth in Cadíz, one of the oldest continuously settled cities of the world.
Modern Andalucía is one of the less prosperous regions of Spain. Power left for Madrid, wealth for Barcelona, art for several places. What stayed behind are olive groves, citrus orchards, the "sea of plastic", where tomatos and stawberries for half the EU are produced. And lots of historic monuments.
We had enough time, so we drove all the way to Andalucía. This allowed us to take a lot of luggage, including our bicycles. It took us two long days of driving to reach the south of Spain.
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