Wishing everyone a prosperous new year and a chance to keep exploring the world.
About Winter
As someone from the south, I’ve always had a mental scar from winter—the childhood memory of doing homework in three sweaters, still freezing and sniffling.
So when deep winter arrives, I instinctively seek warmth, and without hesitation drift into the embrace of the Iberian Peninsula.
But when I left Barcelona and Valencia and headed all the way south, I never imagined that the southernmost tip of the peninsula, Andalusia, could be this alluring.
Granada
It was hard to say what drew me in Granada more: the Alhambra or the free tapas.
The Alhambra, of course, is marvelous. Seven hundred years of Moorish history and art are condensed into this compact palace.
That day I climbed up before sunrise, got in line first, and by the time I came out it was already afternoon. I wandered repeatedly between the Court of the Myrtles and the Court of the Lions. The exquisite carvings seemed to cast a time-bending spell that kept pulling me in.
This Andalusian treasure, like our Dunhuang, was once created, then abandoned, and eventually became a home for drifters.
My uncle, a literary old soul, once drove from New York all by himself to visit what he believes is the birthplace of one of American literature’s giants: Washington Irving.
About two hundred years ago, Irving rode in on a mule, lived among the remnants of the Alhambra for three months, and at night wandered through the palace ruins speaking with Moors from seven hundred years ago. He wrote “Tales of the Alhambra,” and in doing so brought the old palace back to life.
Across the Alhambra is the Albaicín district: little houses climb the hill, streets are narrow and winding, and the feel resembles an old North African Arab quarter—cleaner and more refined.
Moorish daily life has been preserved in place. The hookah cafés and Arabic dessert shops may not look exactly as they once did, but maybe the taste has not changed much.
For food lovers, what probably keeps calling me back even more is tapas. Tapas are the go-with-drinks bites—if you want a plain translation, think of Spain’s versions of pickled cucumber, preserved egg, and spicy little seafood.
You can find tapas all over Spain, but only Granada still keeps the old custom: order one drink and get a free tapa with it. This city is practically a promised land for people in love with alcohol.
After a whole night of bar-hopping, not only did alcohol take over my head, but I also got a pretty good read on the owners’ craft.
I got so drunk I missed the ginkgo trees by the road. In the morning it looked as if the street had changed into gold overnight. Sunlight dappled through golden ginkgo leaves, and I thought of the city’s most beautiful autumn.
Málaga
Before heading to Seville, the more famous city, I made a detour in Málaga.
I had not originally planned Málaga; I added it at the last minute just for Nadal’s final battle. I hoped for that famous ten-li send-off, but Rafa had already left on his own before I got there.
Before going, I only knew Málaga as a British favorite seaside resort, and I had a bit of resistance to a city I imagined as packed with balding retired British men.
But once I stepped into the old town, I immediately fell in love with the crowd of people.
At the outdoor seats of the cafés, everyone was greedily soaking up Andalusian sunshine.
I did not hesitate to join them.
Sitting outside costs extra, a sunshine tax that feels completely reasonable. With Granada’s ginkgo leaves in hand, it felt like I was enjoying autumn in two cities at once.
A wedding had just ended in a small church nearby, and the carefully dressed crowd happily walked off to a party.
The hustle and bustle was theirs—and mine.
From a little hilltop, watching the sunset, the coastline stretched out endlessly into the distance, and seaside towns lined up one after another. What else is there to say about a coast called “the Sun”? It is the ultimate winter-vacation guidebook.
In the morning I jogged along Málaga’s coastline. Spanish people either can’t not play football, and the Mediterranean warmth here is no match for Britain’s cold, biting winds.
Seville
I finally arrived in Seville, the hometown of Don Juan and Carmen.
Even though one was created by an Austrian and the other by a Frenchman.
So when walking by the Guadalquivir, passing below the Tower of Gold, going through the Royal Tobacco Factory, or getting lost in the alleyways of Triana, I always half-expected a rake or a passionate Romani girl to step out around the corner.
Although nowadays, the more likely encounter is probably a Romani pickpocket.
This city has too many famous people.
In the third-largest cathedral in the world, four Spanish kings carried one person’s coffin—only achievements like discovering the Americas would deserve treatment like that.
On Cervantes Street, every passing person made me curious about their relationship to Don Quixote.
At every barbershop I passed, I peeked inside to see if there was a barber named Figaro.
Seville has plenty of sights—the cathedral bell tower, the sunsets at Plaza de España, and even the modern urban parasols are all fantastic.
But Seville’s stories have already scattered across every corner of the city. You don’t need to check in at every spot here—just do two things, as Carmen says: “In beautiful Seville, dance freely, and drink deeply.”
The best Seville is in the little taverns by the street. The essence of Spanish food is often these affordable neighborhood spots. In Andalusia, I didn’t find many chain restaurants in large malls.
If we turned shopping malls into food courts, Spaniards turned ordinary streets into food streets.
Most of the diners are regulars, chatting with each other about everyday things. A good restaurant owner here is usually an outgoing pillar of the community—someone who helps neighbors pick up deliveries and greets passersby warmly.
Order a glass of sherry, sit in the afternoon sunshine, and watch different kinds of lives intertwine.
Andalusia produces lots of oranges, said to have been brought to Europe by Arabs from China and Southeast Asia. In Seville this is especially true, with tens of thousands of orange trees in the whole city.
Buy a basket of oranges, climb to the top of the city with friends, and enjoy the flavor of autumn.
Autumn is when the oranges begin to be harvested. In the streets of Seville, yellow-orange fruits hang from the tops of trees like little lanterns. Ripe oranges fall to the ground and split open, filling the city with a sweet citrus scent.
Honestly, these oranges aren’t the nicest to eat—bitter and sour, if you must know. But their jam became a favorite citrus preserve for the British, and the ingredient list explicitly says: orange from Seville.
Oranges are my favorite fruit. I also taught my Spanish friends a Chinese pun: “xin xiang shi cheng” (wish with your heart, and it becomes orange). Under Seville’s orange trees, I think many dreams can come true.
Perhaps, as Byron put it, “Seville, an intriguing city, famous for oranges and women; the person who has never seen it is truly unlucky.”
- The End -
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