My Spain, my Instagram

Ernest Hemingway once described Spain as “the last good country left.” On my past trips to Spain, this Lost Generation writer made me dream that I could retrace his steps in this country which he visited as a journalist during the Spanish Civil War. And where his passion for bullfighting influenced his novels.

Well, I woke up from that dream and found myself in beautiful Southern Spain — quite far away from Hemingway’s beautiful Costa Brava — but I daresay far more beautiful and inspiring.

“Never travel with anyone you do not love,” Hemingway once said. So I traveled with dear friends and we rode from Sotogrande ready to eat, pray, love and  be charmed by Sevilla, Granada, Alhambra, Ronda and Marbella. We ate paellas and tapas, but it was the churros of Churreria Ramon at Plaza de los Naranjos that stayed on our lips -- and hips. The altars of centuries-old cathedrals made us prayerful. Our warm cultural affinity with the people reminded us that, given the four centuries of Spanish rule in our country, we might have wandered the cobbled streets of Spain in our past lives. Best of all, I savored moveable feasts in this country where, despite its current economic gloom, the sun also rises.