Post by guest blogger Claire Jamison

On Friday 24^th August, Marbella’s first ever Fashion Week was held at the trendy Nikki Beach club. With seven exciting designers, super hot models and a location that screams glam, MFW truly was a fashionista’s paradise.

With the sun setting in the distance, this beautiful backdrop for the show helped create the effortlessly cool, trendy atmosphere. Already known as a famously glamorous Marbella venue, Nikki Beach provided a perfect outdoor fashion show location complete with champagne cocktails. (more…)

After having lived abroad for many years and travelled widely we came upon this little village in the hills not far from Avellino, in the Campania region of Italy. It was a bit like discovering a Tuscan or Gascon village in the 1950s or 60s, for this was authentic Italy untouched by tourists or mass development.

We fell in love with Calitri, with the Italians, their countryside, culture and food. Oh, the food, even the simplest salad or pasta, when made from local ingredients bought in the Calitri market, is a true delight – and when you can enjoy it with the French doors open and letting in the sights and sounds of the countryside, then you’ve got your touch of Mediterranean idyll right there. (more…)

Popular international tenor Stephen Lloyd-Morgan releases albums to aid Spanish and Welsh cancer charities

From the Welsh valleys comes a sound that has nothing at all to do with the corporate mechanisations of the music industry. Here music is not just a business but a way of life – originally a way of expressing faith and later a vital part in the everyday existence of close-knit mining communities. From their ranks sprang forth a choral tradition that not only remains as strong as ever, but continues to be built on the most emotive of all instruments: the voice. (more…)

This article was written for Essential magazine May 2012 edition

We’ve all noticed it, there’s a recession going on. What’s more, it’s been biting hard and has done so for some time now, but quite apart from worries about the national economy there is a local trend that is far more encouraging. In the midst of recession Málaga is transforming itself into a modern city capable of attracting not only tourists and students but also foreign investment and international corporations. Whilst the beautification of the city’s historic centre continues, its pace is increasingly matched by an infrastructural modernisation aimed at turning Málaga into a centre of business and technology.

The first steps towards this goal have already been taken, in the form of the major new public works that began just as the boom ended and either have or are reaching completion now. Thanks to these, Málaga now boasts an impressive new airport terminal with transit capacity to match, a new ring road that alleviates congestion at former choke points near the city’s periphery and allows for easy routes to surrounding cities, and a high-speed rail link to Madrid that culminates in a brand new purpose-built railway station and commercial centre. In addition, work has begun on the initial part of a future metro network. (more…)

Ribera del Duero
The Duero is a river inextricably linked to wine. Rising in highlands near another famous Spanish wine region, La Rioja, it trickles its way through the arid, dusty plains of Old Castile en route to Portugal, where it becomes the mighty Douro, whose terraced slopes are cultivated with grapes that give rise to the country’s many varieties of Port Wine. Compared to this landscape not unlike the German Rhineland, the Spanish wine growing region of Ribera del Duero is somewhat of a poor relative, parched and plain in comparison, yet it is here that some of the finest wines in Spain are produced. (more…)