Manilva's Night of Enchantment

We did not plan to visit the hilltop village of Manilva at the weekend. So it was by mere accident that we stumbled across the annual Night of Enchantment (Noche de Embrujo) which was held last night.

Every year, the town is illuminated by candlelights, the smell of fresh mint littered on the street and music and dancing takes place on pop-up stages along the main street while houses keep their doors open to welcome visitors and residents alike.

At midday when we first explored the town, we witnessed the ongoing preparations for the evening, took a peek at the open doors and windows of the houses along the streets, took in the views surrounding the town from the various viewpoints and bought a pair of earrings from a group of little girls who were playing street vendors in front of their house.

In the evening when it was much cooler, it was a more pleasant walk. We sat down for a drink as live music played around us. And I felt the thrill and excitement of flamenco music and dance for the first time.

We didn't go home until after midnight. Experiences like this remind us why our Spain was never about the sun, sand and sea. It was about these little cultural delights that enlivens the soul.

The White Village of Casares

Many places in Andalusia still leaves you with a sense of having stepped back in time. The photogenic town of Casares, with its white silhouettes of houses sprawling up the hillside and surrounded by the mountainous territory that is Serrania de Ronda, is one such place. Whichever way you approach it, nothing prepares you for the spectacular views it affords from all angles, the distinctive outlines of white sugar cube houses crowned by an Arab castle perched on top of the hill.

We used the toll road and drove along a row of wind turbines, most fascinating to a two year-old who likes anything that goes round and round. There is a tourist information centre just before the entrance to the town and I managed to inform the attendant that I speak no Spanish. She was kind enough to give us a direction to the free car park in perfect English and bade us away with a map of the village.

From the car park, the main village square is reached through a labyrinth of winding streets, passing by local people gossiping on the street. The smell of newly-baked bread from the panaderia made our stomachs rumble but soon enough we found ourselves in front of the water feature called Carlos III Fountain, built in 1785 using neo-classical style which marks the centre of town.

While having our favourite breakfast of cafe con leche and pan y tomate con aceite de oliva, we witnessed village elders hold their council on a couple of benches at the back of a church wall. Locals and tourists crossed the square. Older women hovered around their doorsteps watching the daily goings-on unfold before them. Like they, and many others before them, would have done for ages.

We would have happily stayed there but the square was getting busier and other people needed our seat so we thanked the owner of the cafe who was running a one man show and made our way up the steep hill to the ruins of the moorish wall and the castle, admiring the plants adorning the walls of the houses and greeting everyone we pass by.

The fortress was built in the 13th Century on Roman foundations and the 16th Century Church of the Incarnation, originally a Franciscan-capuchin convent, features a Mundejar tower.

We walked along the walls of the ruins, admiring the views of the town below and following the little boy as he ran around the ruins. On the other side opposite the church is a viewpoint with a panoramic view over olive groves, orchards and forests agains the backdrop of the Mediterranean sea.

The cemetery, located within the castle enclosure is also a site to visit. It is known for its circular construction with whitewashing niches. It was closed when we visited but we were able to admire it through the iron gates.

We used the coastal road on our way home, following a scenic route of hills and wooden areas and dotted with restaurants offering local Andalusian cuisine. We promised to stop by another time, for now content to have our fill of the beautiful Casares.

Urban Art in Industrial Andalucia

My journey to work every day includes a romantic view of the sun rising over the horizon as the car weaves its way towards the prominent Rock of Gibraltar. But as we get closer towards Britain Under the Sun, we have to pass by the industrial heartland of what is otherwise our Andalusian paradise.

The looming towers of CEPSA oil refinery, the largest pollution pumping machinery in the Iberian peninsula, prompts Isaac to shout "fire, hot" every time it comes into view. Perhaps unsurprisingly for one the poorest area in Southern Spain, there is a residential area built around it but one that very few tourists would probably venture towards.

But over the weekend, after taking a wrong turn to get back to the main road towards our safe and well-maintained suburban estate by the seaside, we found ourselves off the beaten track and discovered a street art gallery along the coastal road that hugs the oil refinery. For a big urban art enthusiast, this is indeed a treasure find!

Vienna Apartment: A Mix of Quirky and IKEA

Walking off the beaten track on most of our travels, we would often find ourselves in residential districts where very few tourists bother to tread. As we pass by, I couldn't help but peer inside the houses through the open windows and wonder what their interiors are like and what sort of lives their inhabitants lead.

On our extended holiday in Central Europe in March 2012, we had the chance to experience just that. We were no longer tourists but two individuals with no proof of residency and for two weeks we made Vienna our home. 

We arrived in the Austrian capital at the crimson close of the day when only the last glint of the drowning sun can be seen across the horizon. It was the middle of March, the days were still short but the air carried with it a sense of impending change, of the seasonal transition of winter to spring. 

We stepped out of the train station after a groggy four-hour journey from Budapest where we have lost our passports the week before and navigated our way to the tram stops like seasoned travellers to the city. We have been there only a few days ago, when we came to sightsee. 

Our first accommodation was located in Kolblgasse, a quiet residential neighbourhood with dog walkers and parents wheeling babies on the pram chosen because of its close proximity to the British embassy. The address brought us outside a row of low apartment blocks flushed up against the sidewalks. The buildings have colourful facades and wide windows, the sidewalks paved and the streets lined with cars, mostly in the shades of black or grey, outdated models showing very little signs of frequent use. The transport system in Vienna spells of ease and efficiency you can barely see any cars on the road. 

Our rented home was on an upper floor, accessible either through the well-preserved staircase or the newly added elevator. It was a tiny studio apartment but with plenty of character enough to uplift our dampened spirits. 

The walls were bright yellow and the decorations were inspired by the works of Hundertwasser, a leading figure in Austrian art and architecture. It was quirky and efficient, making perfect use of the limited space available that it could well have been taken straight out of an IKEA catalogue. The mattress was in fact IKEA with its well-known quality where you can feel the slats straight through your back I struggled to sleep at night. Other than that though, everything worked fine and there was free wifi. 

We have booked to stay there for three nights and eventually had to find another place but whilst we were there, I have actually learned to appreciate how much more space and heat efficient it was for people to live in well-built centuries old apartments, as opposed to the ugly modern high rises or suburban estates that are now being built, that I'm almost angry at the obsession of most people especially in Britain in insisting to live in space consuming and heat haemorrhaging houses just so that they can have their own gardens where they can have a barbecue for at most two weeks a year. 

But that is why Vienna has been ranked as the city with the highest quality of living in the world by international consulting company Mercer for several years in the running. They get things like building houses right, amongst other things. 

Hundertwasser House in Vienna which we visited on our extended holiday to the city. 

La Alcaidesa: A Place Without a Soul

La Alcaidesa - the large imposing sign with a backlighting reads amidst a landscape of ornamental plants and trees welcoming us to what promised to be a summer paradise resort in the western end of Costa del Sol. It was November 2013 and we have just escaped the cold autumn weather in Britain for a week-long holiday under the glorious Spanish sun.

An endless row of palm trees soon guided the winding road to our hotel, a journey which took us three kilometers in the car to get to from the main road. There was a footpath underneath the trees and halfway down the gently sloping terrain towards the Mediterranean Sea the clusters of houses started to get visible but aside from an occassional car we have met on the road there were no other signs of life. 

We stayed in Vista Real, one of the two hotel apartments catering to holidaymakers (the other one being Aldiana which caters exclusively to German market) that was part of this Spanish development that was started in the early 1990s. 

The resort itself has a lot going for it:  with impressive panoramic views of the long stretching beach going all the way to the Rock of Gibraltar and on clear bright days, the distant Atlas mountains of Morocco. It is well connected by roads and motorways to more popular travel destinations in Andalusia. It is home to one of the finest golf courses of the region. 

It was the sort of place that would get featured in the Channel 4 programme 'A Place in the Sun' as it would certainly appeal to British expats desperate to escape to a warmer location. And there are plenty of residential homes around with a mixture of townhouses, apartments and villas designed to look like traditional pueblos to keep the appearance of a town. 

But an ideal Spanish town it certainly did not feel like, rather an eerily empty and isolated neighbourhood typical of soulless western suburbia. With very few shops and lack of public transport, a car is an absolute necessity. And despite the beautifully landscaped tree-lined streets, there was no one around. 

A travel review described it as tranquil and peaceful but that was not what I felt whilst driving around. The ghostly quiet made me think twice about coming back. If it is isolation you want, then La Alcaidesa is a perfect place for you but if you long for a real Spanish town, look elsewhere.

Tarifa: At Life's Crossroads

It was the day before we fly back home after a busy week-long holiday in Southern Spain and Gibraltar, packed with last minute meet-ups, rushed sight-seeing and job interviews in between. It would have been the only day we would be left on our own throughout the trip, when we could finally relax and we decided to spend it in Marbella's Old Town. But when we reached the motorway, instead of the planned right turn, John made a last minute detour and took the road that would lead us to the Spanish port town of Tarifa at the bottom of Andalusia's stunning Costa de la Luz. 

Punta de Tarifa is the southernmost point of continental Europe and all that separates it from Africa is the narrow Straits of Gibraltar. Strolling along the walkway with the wind blowing your hair, one is faced with the stark contrasts of the heaving Atlantic Ocean and the calm Mediterranean Sea crashing in its shores. It is no wonder then that this quaint little town attracts a regular flow of surfers throughout the year as well as bird watchers following the steady visible passage of migrating birds during the changing of the seasons.

But for us the lure of Tarifa is due largely because it is a setting of The Alchemist, the only fictional book that I managed to force John (who grew up with an annual subscription of National Geographic) to read. This was where Santiago started his journey to discover his personal legend after meeting with the two people who convinced him to chase after his dreams - the gypsy woman who interpreted his dreams and the King of Salem who told him about Personal Legends and the Soul of the World.

In the early days of our courtship, John has promised to take me there but never had the chance to do it before we moved to the UK. He wasn't to let the opportunity pass that day and perhaps there was no better time. Just like Santiago, we are in an in-between place of choosing what we have dreamt about and something we already have. 

As we navigated the narrow alleyways of the charming Old Town where at one point we saw a promising display of street football, I couldn't help but wonder about the conflicting emotions that would have gripped Santiago as he wandered the same streets. He was just about to sell his herd, his loyal companion throughout his travels around Andalusia, to chase after a future that is unclear, a predicament that we also face. But as the book has more than once quoted, the only thing that comes between a dream coming true is the fear of failure. 

When we left Tarifa that day, I felt a little bit braver, as some who have visited this place before me have probably experienced. I remembered another quote from the book that I held in my heart (a bit idealistic for his tastes, if you must ask John), one that the Alchemist himself has told the boy: 

"Don't think about what you've left behind. If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you have found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing in return."

We can always come back, but we should never wonder what might have been. 

A statue of Jesus looks across Morocco's Pillars of Hercules.