Melanie Coe might be the inspiration behind a Beatles classic, but she’s never traded on her fame. Now she’s chosen Cadiz province as her home, and won’t be leaving any time soon

It’s unlikely that Spain was on Melanie Coe’s mind when she slipped out of her parents’ London apartment leaving nothing but a note one mid-Sixties afternoon.
Back then Melanie’s sole concern was to get away from her stifling upbringing, but that flit has passed into popular mythology because this estate agent who lives in Cádiz province was the inspiration for the Beatles song She’s Leaving Home.
Melanie, then 17, sparked a nationwide manhunt after her parents appealed to the press. And the publicity struck a chord with Paul McCartney, who used her tale as the basis for one of the tracks on the album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band after spotting the story on the front page of the Daily Mirror.
Though McCartney used a bit of licence – Melanie’s boyfriend, for example, was a croupier and not a “man from the motor car trade” – the subject of She’s Leaving Home was recognisably Melanie – at least to her and her family. And some years later McCartney admitted she was the inspiration for the song.
Melanie returned home a month after walking out, tracked down and persuaded back by her parents. But within a year she was married and working with her new husband in the Bahamas.
“I couldn’t face going back to school and I had always had a difficult relationship with my mother, so I guess it was no surprise that I married young. I was breaking away,” says Melanie, speaking from her office in the hill town of Olvera.

Tarragona is a city steeped in the past, with Roman ruins and grand mansions, but it still has one foot firmly in the present.

THE dust has long since settled and so too has the pulse-quickening excitement.
Where crowds once jumped to their feet and cheered on the Formula 1 stars of the ancient world, bank clerks now shuffle paper and watch the hands creep around the clock.
Almost two thousand years ago, the spot where a bank now stands was a prime seat in the Circus of Tarraco, then the second most important city in the Roman Empire.
The oval circuit was built for the popular spectacle of chariot racing and packed in 23,000 spectators who came to see the exhilarating, and often dangerous, contests.
Today, a few metres above the heads of the bank clerks, is a well-preserved section of the circus’ tiered rows of seats – a tantalising reminder of the city of Tarragona’s colourful past.

It also symbolises much of the appeal of this modern-day Catalan city, which sits on a hillside overlooking the Costa Dorada 100km south of Barcelona.
All around, several millennia of history poke through into the fabric of the streets and buildings, inextricably blending with the everyday lives of the city’s 130,000 residents.
So, as you sip a cold beer outside a bar in the Plaça del Forum before you looms a surviving arch from the vast, porticoed Provincial Forum, from which much of the Iberian Peninsula was once governed.
Flats in the old town nestle into remaining stretches of the high Roman wall that long ago encircled Tarraco and the interiors of numerous buildings, like the bank in Plaça de la Font, display exposed sections of ancient walls, arches and beams that over the centuries have been used to support new buildings.

The Costa de la Luz has kept its magic hidden from UK buyers for too long – but now the Brits are catching on to its charms.

It used to be Spain’s open secret – that near neighbour of the Costa del Sol where only those in the know spent their holidays and where only the adventurous chose to live.

The Costa de la Luz has changed a lot in the past few years, though. Many more of us have cottoned on to what the Spanish have always known: that this Atlantic coast of Andalucía has unrivalled beaches, towns almost untouched by outside influences, lovely cities and beautiful countryside. Oh, and property prices to make the better known tourist areas blush.

Tucked away in one of Ibiza’s quietest bays is a home where outside and inside co-exist in perfect harmony.

Ibiza has been a dream holiday destination since the 1960s. Spain was at that time ruled by Franco, and hippies from the mainland found a hub of liberalism on the island. Soon, free-thinkers and artists from other countries followed them and began making Ibiza their home.
The tale spread, and the myth of Ibiza as a paradise island was born. Everybody wanted to move there, take part in the fun – or at least spend at least a few weeks on the island. Ibiza became Europe’s favourite holiday destination.

Today, the island is in the grip of mass tourism, and real hippies are rarely found there. But a few untouched spots still survive. On the west coast of the island, for instance, there is a magical bay that in the 60s and 70s was a favourite hideaway of the hippy community. Today a beautiful white house occupies a prime position, looking as though it has grown out of the landscape. The architecture – at once simple and refined – has an air of masculinity to its edges and clean lines.

A job fixing mountain bikes on the Costa Blanca has brought Dave Welch life, love and happiness.

When Dave Welch headed to Catalunya for a cycling holiday four years ago he was expecting great things, but he didn’t bank on it changing the course of his life.

“I had friends from Barcelona and I came out with them,” the 30-year-old says. “I knew it was going to be a good trip but I didn’t realise how good.”

Mixing Sephardic song with the music of Spain has brought Jasmin Levy a worldwide following.

Yasmin Levy’s vibrant blend of flamenco and Sephardic (Judeo-Spanish) song has made her a familiar name to world music fans around the globe. The singing sensation from Israel has been nominated three times for BBC World Music Awards and has two critically acclaimed albums under her belt, and a third on the way.

Yet Levy never wanted to be a singer; her dream was to be a vet. In fact if she hadn’t visited northern Spain at the age of 17, she may never have made the stage her career. Until then Levy’s musical abilities had been concentrated on accompanying her mother’s vocals at the piano, which she first learned aged six. It was during a trip to the Basque Country that family friend and singer Julia León persuaded the reluctant teenager her rightful place was at the microphone. “Julia said to me ‘Yasmin, there are two women in the world who sing like that: your mother and you. You have to be a singer.’ She opened the window to me,” Levy says.

Pacino’s decision to play Dalí turns the spotlight on the three places closest to the artist’s heart.

Al Pacino is an actor who puts everything into a role. For more than 30 years he has played memorable characters that have demanded his complete dedication – from Shylock in The Merchant of Venice to his unforgettable Michael Corleone in the Godfather trilogy. Now the 67-year-old star has been cast in what could prove to be one of his most challenging parts – as the wildly flamboyant yet enigmatic Salvador Dalí, the 20th century’s most famous surrealist artist.

As an actor that immerses himself in his subject, New Yorker Pacino will no doubt already be studying photos of Dalí to familiarise himself with his accoutrements – the trademark long cape, walking stick, haughty expression and upturned, waxed moustache.

After years spent in different countries, photographer and film maker Kirsten Scully has finally settled in Jerez. 

I’ve never really known where to call home. I was born in Chicago, where my family has a farm, but both my parents are British. My early childhood was split between America and Spain, where they also have a farm, but I went to school in Kent and spent much of my holidays in England. It gets more complicated: I went back to the US to do my degree, then lived in Argentina, settled in Spain, got married and lived in Gibraltar then, after my marriage broke up, came back to the area around Jerez de la Frontera.

I’ve been here for 10 years now, which is the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my life, but I wouldn’t call myself a local. In fact people here can’t even say my name! They call me Kristina because they can’t get their tongues around ‘Kirsten’, but I’ve got used to that.

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.

What better way to bridge the gap between now and your summer holiday than a two night break in sunny Marbella? The chic Lonestar Brasserie in Puerto Banus has teamed up with the five star Gran Hotel Guadalpin Banus to offer you the chance to do just that. Two Spain magazine readers will win two night’s accommodation, plus breakfast in the elegantly designed, beachfront, Gran Hotel Guadalpin Banus, and a sumptuous lunch and dinner for two at the place to dine in style, Lonestar Brasserie.