Retaste Spain brings the Spanish taste to your home

By On · Add Comment

Retaste Spain

Tourist come to Spain due to several reasons, being our gastronomy one of the most important ones to visit us. The best way for finishing a long day walking down the streets of our beautiful cities is having a great lunch, testing the local products and enjoying the typical dishes of the region of Spain in which we stay at that precise moment.

“Retaste Spain” is an online store in which we can buy food and typical products from Spain wherever we are. In this way, we can surprise our family or friends with the Mediterranean flavours of this amazing Spain. Besides, by doing that we can help to publicize the Spanish gastronomy. [Continue Reading...]

Emilio Herrera, a Spanish pioneer in space suits design

By On · Add Comment

Emilio Herrera, space suit

We are going to write about a very important person in both international and national Spanish science who had an important role in Spanish politics after the Spanish Civil War during the twentieth century. Since he was involved in many fields of work like politics, science and the military circle, he has become a very interesting character nowadays.

Emilio Herrera was one of the most important people from Grenade in the twentieth century. He was also the President of the Second Republic of Spain in exile. His contributions in science, engineering and politics could not be matched by any other in his time. He set up and advance hydrodynamic lab in Cuatro Vientos (Madrid), which had one of the most advanced wind tunnels in the 1920s and 1930s of the past century. As aviator, military man and scientific, Emilio Herrera designed and piloted many planes and other flying gadgets like zeppelins or hot air balloons. In addition, he initiated a research with support of the Second Republic Government and other international investors which was the basis of the future NASA space suit. [Continue Reading...]

Tabancora, traditional tabancos route in Jerez

By On · Add Comment

Tabancora

At last! We have decided to dedicate a post to the tabancos wine route in the city of the wine par excellence, Jerez de la Frontera, in the province of Cádiz. The Tabancora, which is how it is called, has emerged from the collaboration between the five tabancos in Jerez, located in the old part of the city and relatively close to each other, to promote this typical local establishment.

However, wouldn’t it be convenient to explain first what a tabanco is for all those who do not know it? The tabancos are typical local bars, whose appearance goes back nearly four centuries ago. There, groups of friends gathered around a glass of Sherry and the most varied food coming from this area. Here, wine was also sold in bulk and local flamenco singers were advertised, although perhaps the most typical thing is that the money each customer owes is written down on the wooden bar counter using chalk. Although they were about to disappear at the beginning of the 21st century, the tabancos are having again a highpoint. [Continue Reading...]

Baqueira Beret, a paradise for winter lovers

By On · Add Comment

Baqueira Beret

Winter is not a very popular time of year since most of the people prefer the heat in summer rather than the freezing winter. But it is not only because of the warm weather, but because of the rituals that go with it, for instance, going to the beach, enjoying a beer on a terrace or walking down the street without freeze.

On the contrary, winter is the favorite season of people who love for winter sports, more specifically those sports which have snow as the main protagonist, as, for example, skiing. There are more and more ardent supporters of this sport, and it is therefore expanding the market in all fields related to skiing, like sports equipment or sunscreens. With this in mind, we are going to dedicate this post to the Spanish Resort of Baqueira Beret, situated in the autonomous community of Catalonia. Baqueira is an ideal place for those people from Barcelona who want to visit it due to its proximity to the station. However, they are not only the Catalans who come here frequently in winter, but also those coming from the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Aragon and France. [Continue Reading...]

Monastery of Poio, an excellent place to have a break from daily life

By On · Add Comment

Monastery of Poio

Christmas is coming and, during these days, schools and stores are close, at least on December 24th, 25th, and 31st and January 1st. That is the reason why so many families are making plans to spend these days away from home getting to know new places. Despite the financial crisis, which has caused many families to stay at home instead of traveling abroad, many of them still can afford visiting awesome destinations in Spain, and this is why we are giving you a wonderful idea to spend you Christmas holidays inside the country: visiting the Monastery of Saint Juan de Poio, in Pontevedra (Galicia).

The foundation of this beautiful monastery is attributed to Saint Fructuoso in the 7th century. Saint Juan de Poio is placed in the Ria de Pontevedra. There are two very interesting and curious facts about this building: the first is that the tiles of the Church are perfectly squared and numbered because, according to tradition, the temple served to bury the parishioners. The second is that the world’s largest hórreo (granary) is located here. For all those who do not come from Galicia, where the hórreos are typical constructions dating back to the 13th century, we would like to say that these granaries are agricultural buildings designed to save and dry cereals and to separate them from the soil to prevent water or animals to come in. They are so beautiful and unique constructions that are protected by the Spanish Government since 1973. [Continue Reading...]

The olive harvest, going through a crisis too

By On · Add Comment

The olive harvest in Jaén

It is unnecessary to repeat again and again how, unfortunately, the economic crisis has become a sad reality in every sector and how it is expected to remain this way at least during the following year. The olive harvest, which is beginning next December, will not get rid of the bad omens. In fact, just a few weeks before it starts, it is already sure that the results will be worse than those in previous years for all those people who are directly or indirectly connected with harvest of the olive.

The harvest of olive, which normally lasts about forty days (since the beginning of December until mid January), is expected to last this year no more than a couple of weeks, three at the most. In fact, there are many olive groves where there are no olives at all, so, as a consequence, their owners won’t have to go there to harvest their olives with their “cuadrillas”, which is the popular name given to those groups of day laborers who gather to take the olive from the country to the factory. The shorter duration of the harvest this year is going to be totally unusual. Actually, such a painful situation in the Spanish olive groves have not happened since the drought in the year 1995, which is the only recent historical time that can be compared to the present time. [Continue Reading...]

Church weddings vs. Civil ceremonies in Spain

By On · Add Comment

Church wedding in Spain

Spain has always been a country of Catholic tradition, and this has clearly been reflected in, for example, the traditional way of marriage that Spaniards have mainly chosen since the beginning of democracy in the 1970s. Before 1981, the only valid marriage in Spain was the church wedding, but, after the legalization of civil ceremonies, an overwhelming majority of couples still decided to continue with the tradition and preferred the Catholic marriage.

Well, nowadays the trend has changed and since 2009 more and more couples are deciding to make their declarations of love at Court instead of going to the church. One could think that the increase in the number of civil ceremonies would be due to the legalization of marriage between people of the same sex in 2005, but it is just partly true; since the year 2000 the number of church weddings has been falling significantly while that of civil marriages has been increasing (all this taking into account that the number of marriages now is lower than in the past three decades). [Continue Reading...]