8   Patio des Naranjos

8 Patio des Naranjos

As soon I walked through the 14th century Moorish arch into the Patio de los Naranjos (Court of Orange Trees), a feeling of peace descended upon me. I’m not prone to these things, but water from a sculptural stone fountain played in the middle of a walled garden, set...
7      La Mesquita

7 La Mesquita

Showered and refreshed, I emerged back on to the street, bordering on to the railway sidings that my modest hotel overlooked, in what was clearly an unfashionable quarter of the city. Just as when you bang your head for long enough against a wall, it’s lovely when you...
6    Cordoba

6 Cordoba

From an early age, the sound of the Classical or Spanish guitar has had a profound effect upon me, evoking moods or even memories, of places to which I have never been. I am not talking of the rhythms of Flamenco, but rather the more restrained music of the classical...
5    Plaza d’Espana

5 Plaza d’Espana

The first day had been a great success by my standards. My first painting was not a disaster, and I had two other drawings under my belt, which I liked, and could later paint from, in the studio. Giddy with my success I hopped out of bed the following morning, and...
4    Torre del Oro

4 Torre del Oro

Endless souvenir shops, outdoor cafes and warmly inviting streets provided displacement activities that carried me to that time of day when its too early to go home, but its too late to start much new. My ramblings had taken me to the banks of the Guadalquivir river,...
3    Seville Cathedral

3 Seville Cathedral

Seville Cathedral is big. Reputedly the third biggest in the world, topped only by St. Pauls in London, and that other big one in Rome. Visiting any such tourist hot-spot one has to fight off the sense of being a processed pea, amongst throngs of other visitors,...
2   La Giralda

2 La Giralda

I slept like a baby. I don’t know why people use that expression to describe deep, refreshing and uninterrupted slumber; my experience of babies calls to mind continual waking in the night accompanied by crying, chewing of blankets and uncontrolled pooing....

Introduction to Spain 2001

An Artist in Andalucia Introduction At the age of thirteen, my first encounter with the Mediterranean climate was unexpected and wonderful. Stepping off the BEA Vanguard passenger jet on to the shimmering tarmac of Valetta airport, Malta, in July 1970, I was...
1  Seville

1 Seville

Apart from the flights I didn’t book anything in advance. It seemed a far more romantic notion to just arrive in Andalucia; me with a backpack, and a whole new world to be discovered. Inevitably, reality turns out to be a little more bracing than the sunny...