Stories: Spain

Stories connected to Spain.

• A nativity scene, with someone answering nature’s call.Catalan and some neighbouring nativity traditions include a caganer: a small figure depicted defecating. Sacr…
• Secret documents intended to be discovered.Operation Mincemeat was a British deception in 1943. Documents planted on a body were used to mislead the ene…
• Both the goat and the flower matter. Protecting one may threaten the other.Aquilegia paui grows only in a small mountain area of northeastern Spain. Local ibex eat its leaves, stems an…
• An elephant once roamed Europe. Mature bulls averaged about 13 tonnes.The extinct straight-tusked elephant lived in Europe and western Asia during the Pleistocene. Fully grown mal…
• To make a chariot-racing game, he studied 43 ancient arenas.Spanish developer Daniel Lopez Soria drew inspiration from a 1979 board game for Qvadriga, released in 2014.…
• He was being flown back to Spain. His 'bomb' was made of soap.After the 1954 Guatemalan coup, Francoist agents put Spanish exile Alejandro Finisterre on a plane back to Sp…
• His pursuer sat in a café. He paid the man's coffee bill.In 1945, anti-Franco guerrilla Marcelino Massana visited a café frequented by a Civil Guard captain who had v…
• The author says: I didn't write it. I translated an old manuscript.Don Quixote uses the 'found manuscript' device: Cervantes presents much of the tale as a translation from an…
• Its planks were joined with pegs. And sewn along the seams.The Iron Age wreck known as Mazarrón I, found off Spain and identified in 1991, combines pegged mortise-and-t…
• Nearby plants can look different, while faraway plants look alike.The succulent Petrosedum sediforme grows around the Mediterranean. In Spain's Sierra Nevada, plants growing s…
• She trained in wartime Sarajevo and reached the Olympic start line.Bosnian runner Mirsada Burić was held in a camp during the 1992 war and later released. She trained while nav…
• One side of the tennis court was grass, the other clayIn a 2007 exhibition on Mallorca, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal played on a court split between grass and cl…
• The costumes also carry a review of the past yearLa Vijanera in Silió, Spain, features many costumed characters, including figures wearing skins and bells. Al…
• A mock coup comes with flour and eggsIn Ibi, Spain, Els Enfarinats on December 28 involves participants in mock military clothing staging a preten…
• At Haro’s festival, people splash wine on one anotherThe wine festival in Haro, La Rioja, includes a wine battle. Following a mass, participants splash each other…
• Some surviving platform shoes exceed fifty centimetresChopines were elevated shoes worn during the Renaissance, with surviving examples more than fifty centimetres…
• Bueno loses its final vowel before a masculine singular nounSpanish bueno becomes buen before a masculine singular noun, as in buen hombre. In hombre bueno, the final vo…
• Catalan l·l differs from llCatalan uses the middle dot between two l letters in l·l, distinguishing this pattern from ll with its differ…
• Spanish 1.ª abbreviates a feminine formSpanish primera can be abbreviated as 1.ª. The raised a helps represent the feminine ordinal form, with a per…
• Drosophyllum differs from the usual wetland imageDrosophyllum grows in the western Mediterranean, including Portugal, southwestern Spain and northern Morocco.…
• He reached the line, but did not officially finishDerek Redmond injured his hamstring during the 1992 Olympic 400-metre semi-final. He continued, supported by…
• Homes are built into the town’s rock formationsSetenil de las Bodegas in Spain’s Cádiz province is known for dwellings built into rock formations. The natur…
• An attack on a harbour acquired a very personal nicknameIn 1587, Francis Drake’s fleet raided Cádiz in Spain, destroying or capturing ships and supplies. The expedit…
• A haircut before returning to the hillsIn Galicia, Spain, semi-feral horses living in the mountains are gathered into enclosures for Rapa das Bestas…