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

.
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.

 
Leah Tilbury was given just one day to decide whether to buy Las Banderas on Ibiza, but she didn’t hesitate. Now it’s a regular haunt for Europe’s fashion set

WHEN Leah Tilbury was offered the chance to take over a tumbledown property in Formentera, an island off southern Ibiza, she had only 24 hours to make a decision. As a mother of two young children happily settled in Ibiza with her husband John, the prospect of uprooting the family, relocating to a different island and setting up a business was not something she had previously considered. However, she instinctively felt it would be wrong to say no – and without a moment’s hesitation she accepted.
Six years on, the spur-of-the-moment decision has paid off. The property has been transformed into the colourful Las Banderas, a bohemian-chic beach restaurant and bed and breakfast, with a loyal crowd of glamorous followers.
“It has been a lot of hard work and a very steep learning curve but we have no regrets,” smiles Leah as she surveys their creation. “I have loved the past six years.”
It was at the age of six weeks that Leah was first introduced to Ibizan life, when her parents moved to the island with her, and her sister Charlotte. Her British artist father Lance and her mother Patsy – a PA to the actor Terry-Thomas – had met and fallen in love in (and with) Ibiza during the island’s hippy 1960s heyday.
And so Leah, now 33, enjoyed a suitably colourful upbringing, dotted with bohemian house parties and a stream of unusual and eccentric visitors, ranging from Ronnie Wood to Freddie Mercury.
“It was a wonderful childhood as we had so much freedom and met so many interesting characters,” she says. “Ibiza was very different then to how you see it now. It was very arty, bohemian and musical and attracted some very well-known people. I remember Sarah Ferguson coming and taking me go-karting on one occasion.”
 

The Holmes family were delighted to find a modern interior-designed villa with room to add their own style.

Discreetly tucked away behind high bougainvillea-covered whitewashed walls is Casa Miami. The stunning home of John and Sally Holmes in Guadalmina Baja could be easily missed whilst travelling along the narrow road that leads from the highway to the quiet beach a short distance from the house. Once the heavy steel gates swing open, however, the true beauty of the house becomes apparent.
Casa Miami is a spacious contemporary villa painted a cool azure blue. Sally greets me on the drive with her daughter, Poppy, and ushers me through the house to the shaded terraces overlooking the stunning gardens and swimming pool. As we sit drinking tea Sally explains how she, Poppy and husband John started their life in Spain.
“When Poppy was born in December 2005 we decided that it would be a wonderful opportunity for us to move to Spain on a more permanent basis so that we could give her the gift of being bilingual, along with all the other lifestyle benefits of living in Spain such as the fabulous weather and outdoor lifestyle. We have a house in the UK and John still has a business there and commutes on a regular basis, but with the use of the internet he can spend plenty of time with us here in the sunshine.”
It is hard to believe the house is so close to a busy road. The only sound is birdsong and the soft burble of the waterfall at the far end of the swimming pool. As we walk around the gardens Sally explains what their priorities were when looking for their dream home.

It’s a tough assignment; find something new to discover about one of Britain’s favourite holiday spots. Matthew Barnett proves he’s up to the challenge.

Diving into what must be one of Europe’s number one tourist destinations with the object of reporting back on somewhere different and relatively unexplored is a task that might tax the most hardened SAS veteran. I could almost sense an army Colonel bearing down on me with beetled brows, arms behind back and cane tapping irritably against leather boots as he growled menacingly,  “now look here Barnett, you’d better deliver. We have readers whose Hispanic sensibilities entirely depend upon the outcome of this mission! Failure is simply not an option …”

Once a year, the province of Huelva looks more like the set of a Western than a sleepy corner of Spain, when its wild Doñana horses rounded up by modern day cowboys to take part in the famous El Rocío celebrations. Anthony Jefferies follows their trail.

Spaniards sometimes refer to Huelva as the ‘wild west’. It’s a term intended to describe a certain ‘redness’ around the neck, and has little to do with cowboys and Indians, wagon trains and cattle drives.

What they probably don’t realise is that the laugh is on them, because this most south-westerly province of Spain is home to the type of annual event that is more often associated with the wide, open spaces of North America than with the olive groves and fruit farms that dominate Huelva.