I adore Spain.  I have been here just over two years, and it feels more like home than any other place I have been.

I love the people, the food, the siestas, the fiestas, the scenery.  I even love the six day work week.

Yet I had never wanted to come to Spain.  My parents bought a holiday home here a few years ago, and while I thought I might use it once in a while to try to add some colour to my Scottish pall,  the notion of a loud, brash country teeming with crowded bars and strip joints; bull-fights and Benidorm; beaches and booze, just didn´t appeal to me as a travel destination with any depth.

On my first trip, it took only two days of the sights and sounds of the real Spain to seduce me into staying.

This, say my Spanish freinds in the problem.  The Spanish tourism board only promotes the cutural phenomenon that draw the crowds.  They publicize images of sun,sea and sangria and ignore the heart of Spain.   They do their own country a huge disservice.   Even after two years,  I am still falling foul of this illusion of Spain, and had no idea until recently that the large, black, steel outlines of the famous Spanish emblem of the bull that stand proud on the landscape in Alicante are not pro-Catalan statements, but rather attractions installed for us ´giris' (tourists).

Spain is full of beautiful scenery - mountains, deserts, pine forrests, and beaches.   There are fiestas for every day of the week, all celebrating events and traditions that show the richness and vibrancy of the tapestry of culture of Spanish society.  The cheap Sangria of red wine and lemonade belies the variety and depth of Spain's wine industry.  

It is my goal in this travelogue to talk about my experiences in Spain, and to reveal some of it´s hidden secrets, both geographical and social.