Stories & curiosities

The term “Costa Brava” was first coined by the poet and publicist Ferran Agulló i Vidal on September 12, 1908, in the newspaper La Veu de Catalunya. The journalist was not offering a new name for the popular tourist spot, since the Costa Brava wasn’t a major tourist destination just yet — he was only […]

That any piece of beach real estate would come at a premium doesn’t surprise anyone anymore, least of all the seasoned and well-travelled beachgoers. The way today’s precious real estate used to be occupied is a different matter entirely — and some stories may amaze you. The proximity to fishing ports, warehouses, and goods exchanges […]

The Slow Food movement was born in Italy in 1986 in response to the opening of a McDonald’s right across the famous Spanish Steps in Rome. The name of the movement directly references its main enemy — fast food — and summarizes its main principle of doing the exact opposite. Slow Food promotes the unhurried […]

“Who cares, I’m only going to sleep here,” — this is my usual thought upon discovering the minuscule size of my hotel room. If it happens to be a luxurious 5-star hotel or a two-bedroom apartment rental, justifications like that are rarely needed, but the sentiment is still the same. We book hotels and rent […]

If we talk horses, would any famous ones come to mind? History knows quite a few examples, like Bucephalus (the horse of Alexander the Great), Rocinante (the horse of Don Quixote), the winged stallion Pegasus, a rare species of the Przewalski’s horse, as well as the Russian mythology’s own Sivka-Burka. However, do you know of […]

The linguistic mine planted by Christopher Columbus upon the discovery of America — calling the Native peoples he encountered “Indians” under the assumption that he had, indeed, found India — has implications both for the English and the Spanish languages. No one has bothered to correct Columbus’s mistake since then, adding to the linguistic confusion […]