Against a backdrop of strikes and continuing economic hardship across Spain, the author travels alone by rail and bus, encountering the vibrant heritage of the regions, including a singing Gypsy by an ancient well in remote, unspoilt Extremadura, the creativity and resilience of a gourmet beggar in the big city of Zaragoza and a lone disabled pilgrim going home from the Camino de Santiago after quitting the road.
As well, he discovers intrepid ex-pats who are carving out their own lives away from international communities.
Slow Travels in Unsung Spain is new and fresh because it largely ignores Spain’s over-developed coastal resorts and islands, bypassing the standard fare of Spain’s beaches and fiestas or clichés around bullfighting, the siesta, and football. Instead the author, uncovers the real heartland where the next future waves of tourism could well be.
Brett Hetherington is a long-time Spanish resident and journalist. His sweet-and-sour travelogue uncovers a deeper Spain that has a rich culture and past, alive and well in these hidden corners of Europe.
Genre: TRAVEL / Essays & TraveloguesAmazon Best Sellers Ranked in Top 100 in Spain & Portugal Travel (#976)
Today I was leaving my familiar little home patch to explore a much wider home. I took myself to our local train station and instead of heading into Barcelona city, as I usually did, this time I made sure to remember to go to the other side of the platform and get on a train going south – the way out of Catalonia. In my head was the idea to follow up on a desire to travel further into Spain’s heated-up summer interior, especially to parts of it that I had not yet experienced and to places that were off the standard tourist trail.
In short, I had the appetite to see more of the country I had come to call home but this time bear witness with a different sensibility. I wanted to be a solo traveller again and find that other Spain, that elsewhere. I was hungry for the largeness of Spain, the expanse of it, but I had a destination in mind. Almost nine hundred kilometres away, I imagined the town called Ubeda as old, dusty, white and dry, and I planned it to be my turning circle, after which I would head home.
Ubeda was somewhere I had never been before. It is the hometown of Antonio Muñoz Molina, a Spanish writer I greatly admire. Amongst other desires, I had a question about him that I wanted to try to get an answer for. Could I recognise if the town of his upbringing had affected his novels? For many years, he had lived with his wife (also an accomplished writer) in both Madrid and New York, but as a young man he couldn’t wait to get away from small-town Spain as quickly as possible.
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German
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Already translated.
Translated by Daniela Tannebaum
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Author review: Attention to detail was superb and communicating was easy and smooth. |
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Mariana D'Angelo
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Author review: Mariana was absolutely great to work with. I'd certainly recommend her very highly and I'd be more than happy to work with her again in the future. |
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Spanish
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Unavailable for translation.
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