On the road to Ronda sits a traditional-style villa with a contemporary homely twist, built by Malcolm and Amanda Reagan to be their dream home.

The Ronda road twists and turns up from the hustle and bustle of San Pedro de Alcantara on the Costa del Sol, passing luxury housing developments that cling to the rocky hillside. A short distance past the exclusive Los Arqueros Golf Club is El Madroñal, an urbanisation of luxury villas dotted across the rugged Andalucian hillside. Steel entrance gates swing open and the narrow private road meanders down into the lush valley past pastel painted villas of varying grandeur just visible behind high walls and thick foliage.

The steep road eventually takes a sharp turn to the right and Casa Calista comes into view. I swing through the open entrance and the owner, Malcolm Reagan, greets me as I step out of the car.
The majestic villa, built in a traditional Spanish style, was finally completed three years ago but the project actually started more than seven years previously. As we walk through the spacious sitting room to the terrace overlooking the swimming pool Malcolm explains.

“We originally looked to buy a completed new house but couldn’t find anything that we liked even after three years of looking. Then we decided to build our own house, but spent a further year looking for the right plot of land. Once we had found the plot we then had to go through the lengthy process of applying for building licences and locating a good architect and team of builders. We eventually found a Spanish architect and a local builder. I must say that I have been extremely happy with both and if we ever decided to build a house again I would certainly use the same people.”

David Whitley heads to the birthplace of modern America, and comes face to face with the world’s most famous explorer.
 
An empty, crunched-up Coke can lies on the grass, perhaps the most fitting piece of litter ever seen. The conquest has gone full circle.

This small park may seem rather unexceptional, but more than 500 years ago it was the scene of something that would change the world as we know it. It’s hard to believe, but the silted-up riverbed that is now being planted over is the birthplace of modern America.

These days, Palos De La Frontera is just a small town in south-west Spain. Nothing much goes on here, and ever since the river dried up, it’s not really had a purpose. In 1492, though, it was the most exciting place in the world to be. Most of the men in the village were about to head to sea, and not all of them would return.

Following lengthy negotiations, a certain Genoese sailor got permission from the Spanish monarchs to take three ships and go exploring from this one-time port. His name? Christopher Columbus.
You start to get inklings of this by standing outside the church that overlooks the park. The Iglesia de San Jorge was where the crew – two-thirds of whom came from Palos – took communion prior to sailing, and it is decorated with plaques. All say, to all intents and purposes, ‘Columbus Woz ‘Ere’.
It’s all very pretty, but you don’t really get a good grasp of its historic importance until you start walking up the road to La Rabida. On each side of the road, spaced out almost as road markers, are tile paintings. Each one is saying thanks to the town, and each one is from somewhere different. They’re all from different regions of Spain, which makes it come across at first as a Government initiative to ensure that everybody gets on. However, further down, things get a little more exotic. There are tributes from El Salvador, Bolivia, Peru, Columbia, Mexico, The United States… The whole of the Americas is nodding to those who found it.

Many Spanish people would love to learn English, but the current system means that only those that can afford it have the chance.

The fact that my four year-old son seems to be turning out bilingual (a far from automatic process, by the way, when your parents have two different nationalities) is a source of amazement and envy to the Spanish people we know. Some of them, half-jokingly I hope, remind us how much money we'll save in English classes later on.
  

The assumption is that if they're to have any chance of success in life, everyone has to speak English – something that is perhaps debatable, but which Spaniards wholeheartedly believe. In the 90s, dozens of dodgy English-language schools were set up throughout Spain and duly ripped off the locals, though thankfully the industry is now more regulated.
  

 Friends of ours send their children off to English-speaking countries for months at a time, fearful that otherwise the kids will be left behind in life; others struggle to put them through bilingual schools; Madrid's local government has recently set up a system of so-called "bilingual" state schools, which people are desperate to have their kids go to, even though in many cases the "bilingual" teacher is actually a fifty-year old Spaniard who's done a one-month refresher course. "Bilingual" is the buzzword. But, for many historical and social reasons, it's not working yet, and it's likely to be a long time before Spain is producing bilingual people with the same efficiency as, say, Germany, the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries.
 

The Tattersall family moved to southern Spain to spend more time together, but achieving their dream wasn’t always child’s play.

“Moving to Spain from Britain is a big upheaval in anyone’s life but, arguably, we’ve been through far bigger changes since we arrived here in late 2002. Gareth and I grew up and met on Anglesey, and we were happy enough living there. I was a nurse and midwife working in the district general hospital and Gareth was a technician at the island’s nuclear power plant.

Our holidays were often spent at my parents’ property in Mijas on the Costa del Sol, but it was only when we started travelling inland and really exploring Spain that the country got into our blood. Places like Seville and Córdoba can’t fail to inspire, and we really fell for the food, the culture, the people and especially the way of life we discovered away from the heavily populated tourist areas.

We liked the fact that Spain seemed to lag behind the UK in all the right ways. OK, so things took longer and there was lots more bureaucracy, but you could walk down the street without feeling threatened, and just the way people behaved towards each other was more open and friendly.

We started thinking about relocating, but everything was put on hold when our son, Ben, was born seven years ago. We thought we’d have to abandon our dreams but after a while we realised his arrival had given us even more incentive to move: we wanted a better childhood for him than he could get in Britain.

Keeping and killing a pig to feed the family for a year is a tradition that is dying out in modern Catalunya, although some are still keeping the old customs alive

Quite what drew crowds of people to turn out for public executions in the past has always mystified me. Yet here I was, bumping down a dusty farm track in northern Catalunya to witness just such an event. Okay, in this case the condemned was a pig but it didn’t make the prospect of watching its demise any more appealing. Not that we hadn’t been warned. When Quim Vidal, whose parents own Mas Aleix farm, outside the village of Bàscara, in the Alt Empordà, invited us to join his family for the annual slaughter of a pig, he had hinted that it might be better to skip the first day.

The custom of killing a pig to provide a family with meat and sausages for the coming year is an old tradition in Catalunya, and one that involves everyone from grandparents down to young children. Although health and hygiene restrictions now limit the practice to the countryside, it used to be commonplace in towns and villages where livestock was kept and fattened. Various Catalan friends with rural ties, including a hairdresser and a schoolteacher, told us their families still gather every December to help with the annual ritual.

Since our household had tucked into its fair share of juicy Catalan sausages and platters of cold meats - botifarra and embotit – it only seemed right that we saw for ourselves where they came from. While the occasions are social events and usually held over a weekend, the sheer scale of work involved in preparing the sausages means that everyone has to muck in to get the job done. The reward is a gift of fresh fare from a “free range” pig, untainted by the industrial process that churns out most of Spain’s meat products.

Win a Trip to Barcelona

Codorniu and Spain magazine are offering one lucky Spain magazine reader and a friend the chance to win an indulgent trip to Barcelona, home of Codorniu, a sparkling wine from Spain, made using an elaborate and traditional method the same as that used to make Champagne.

Your trip will include a VIP tour and tasting at the stunning Codorniu winery in the hills of Penedes and a private tour of Barcelona with an English-speaking guide. The modernist Codorniu winery is now a national historic monument and was designed by Puir i Cadafalch, a student of Gaudi. You will stay at the 5 star Hotel Neri in the fashionable Barri Gotic of Barcelona. A Gothic palace tucked neatly away on the delightful Placa Felip Neri near the cathedral, it’s fast gaining a reputation as one of the most romantic places in the city and was recently occupied by actor John Malkovich for a month while he was appearing in his play Hysteria at a local theatre.

Saints, legends and a strange sweet concoction – Avila is a city full of surprises.

In Central Spain, not too far from Madrid, lies a medieval walled city, with history galore, and tales of miracles and mysticism. Its name is Avila, and it sits 1,117m above sea level, in the autonomous region of Castilla y León, making it the highest capital city in Spain. It is built on the summit of a rocky hill and is surrounded by the brown, arid, treeless land that makes up many parts of central Spain. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see

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On our journey there, taking one of the many cercania trains that run daily from Madrid, we spent our time watching the amazing birds, including a flock of vultures, flying about the Sierra de Gredos mountains that enclose the city.

Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the history of Avila stretches back to 700BC and the Vettons, peoples of Celtic origins who found the area, with its defensive mountains and nearby river, a perfect place to make camp. But its true origins are said to stretch back even further than that. According to mythology, the site was founded by Alcideo, the son of Hercules and Abyla, who named the city after his mother. However, it was the arrival of the Romans in 3BC which saw the city take on a more strategic role, with the building of the first city wall turning Avila into an important defensive enclave and developing the basis of the current city layout.

The walls that greet visitors now date from the beginning of the 12th century and tradition has it that their construction, on the remains of the old Roman wall, was supervised by Raimundo de Baroña, the son-in-law of Alfonso VI. Nine centuries on, his work is still impressive. Las Murallas, as they are known, stretch 2.5km around the old city, have 82 towers and nine puertas (gates) as well as three smaller openings. Perfectly preserved, they contain many elements of the Mudejar style so dominant in the Arabic-influenced architecture of the time.

Golf properties are big business these days, but how do you sort the bogeys from the holes-in-one?

What’s the one image that typifies Spain – the one thing that springs to mind when someone talks about this visually and culturally diverse country?
Sandy beaches, maybe. Or flamenco? Tapas, bullfighting, sherry, Rioja wines? Barcelona’s riotous Gaudi or Catalunya’s Dali connection, or maybe Picasso’s Cubist art?
For an increasing number of foreign visitors and residents, Spain’s main attraction can be conjured up in one small word: golf. The game may have its roots in misty, moist Scotland but its relatively recent marriage with sun-kissed Spain has been a remarkable one, which (even allowing for property scaremongering) shows little sign of slowing down.
The beauty of golf in Spain is that you can play any kind of course in wildly different climates. From the Costa Brava, with lush hilly courses and cool winters to the desert courses of Murcia, where only mad dogs and Englishmen might tee off in the heat of a summer’s day, there really is something for everyone.
By and large, the long coastline from Spain’s north-eastern corner to its south-western tip is where most of the golfing action takes place. There are inland courses, and those within striking distance of one or other of the costas prove particularly popular with foreign players.
 

2 Mandarins
10ml Red Vermouth
100ml Codorniu Reserva Rosado Vintage Brut

Method
Squeeze the mandarins and pour the juice into a mixing glass.
Add the Red Vermouth.
Pour in the Codorniu Reserva Rosado and stir gently with a bar spoon.
Pour in to a glass flute.
Take a slice of mandarin skin and twist a few drops of oil over the glass and stir.