Few industries throw up more resourceful people than tourism. In her new book about Cuba, due out next month, Dervla Murphy recalls going for a hike near the city of Trinidad. On her way back she saw a few young jineteros – touts – hanging around with a pony, “offering to pose as mini-cowboys for [...]

They like their slogans downbeat in the Spanish province of Teruel. First, the local people, tired of being dismissed by the rest of Spain, came up with “Teruel existe” — Teruel exists. Now the village of Miravete de la Sierra is being sold with the line “el pueblo en el que nunca pasa nada” [...]

While I was in the underrated Spanish city of Zaragoza last week, I visited its huge Expo, devoted to the theme of water and sustainable development. Most of its pavilions were dreary showcases for the export and tourism industries (the African ones having portraits of their presidents that were bigger than the maps of [...]

The New York Times has a piece today on “the magic of urban fishing”. It quotes one Sid Evans as saying,
When you actually catch one and you’re holding it and you can see the Manhattan skyline in the distance… you feel like you’ve gotten away with something.
I know just what he means. I had the [...]