Catalunya Life

Costa de la luz real estate

2011-07-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

Property for sale in Costa de la Luz is completely different to anything else seen in Spain and offers a sporting lifestyle.

I would like to say that Costa de la luz Huelva side offers a great opportunity for the sagging real estate market in Span and it could well be that as far as a tranquil holiday home there is nothing to beat the Huelva part of Costa de la Luz

Property prices are considerably more expensive than you would imagine but it does have a Caribbean feel to the place

So we have now decided to open a small office in Ayamonte and

Publish Post

add Costa de la Luz property as our 4^th area of Spain we will now be selling in after Mallorca, Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol

Costa Brava Property Market Review August 2010 – Property for Sale Spain

2010-08-22T05:23:00.000-07:00

So you looking to take the plunge and buy a property for sale in Spain and have decided on Costa Brava one of the best places for property investment in Europe let alone Spain. Well you will be pleased to know that Costa Brava property does have some advantages over other parts of Cataluña in Spain with its location and lifestyle being some of them.

Costa Brava property for sale in Spain is very much the best investment in Spain because in this recent Spanish property recession property prices actually went up. Imagine that property prices going up in a recession so it they are not going to collapse in this recession you’re on to a pretty safe bet. However one word of caution prices don’t rocket up in price either it’s a very stable market. So if you’re looking for good capital growth then Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol may represent better investment value.

Spanish property for sale in Costa Brava is for those who want to live and breathe the beat that Cataluña has to offer. Costa Brava property is very well priced for its quality. Property in Costa Brava benefits from superb scenery and fantastic coves and excellent restaurants the coastal zone of the Costa Brava begins 4kms North of Barcelona and extends to the French border. It is well known for its beaches and resorts, with a scenic and rugged coastline: a succession of coves, cliffs, and mountaintop lookouts dotted along. Some its areas have been massively dedicated to tourism, but others, such as Tossa de Mar, still retain their original size and fishing village charm. Other picturesque towns and villages can be found all along the Costa Brava, as well as the Greek and Roman ruins of Empúries. Two inland towns make for good day-trips if you're vacationing on the coast. The riverside town of Girona (Gerona in Spanish) features an 13th-century cathedral, an old Jewish quarter, and museums. The Salvador Dalí Museum is a must for lovers of surrealism.

So if you decide to buy Costa Brava property for sale in Spain please make sure you use an agent who knows the area and who you can trust to look after your interests. Other than that I wish you good luck

Salou Authorities Completely Bonkers

2010-07-03T05:04:00.000-07:00

Only in stuck up Catalunya could you come up with such a stupid insane plan with the news that anyone seen in swimming gear or with a bare chest will be slapped with a £250 fine in the resort of Salou.

The port, on the Costa Dorada, has issued the clampdown after Brit holidaymakers poured into clubs and bars almost naked.

And there are now fears the swimwear ban could spread to other destinations including Benidorm, Magaluf, Marbella and Torremolinos. Well that wont heppen in Andalcuia because they have brains.

Salou, south of Barcelona, reckons its reputation has been shattered by punters in shops and restaurants leaving little to the imagination.

And officials were furious after Easter, when 5,000 Brit students flocked there for “Saloufest”, a week of boozing.
Paramedics treated dozens of drunken tourists and several arrests were made, one for rape.

But new bylaws mean anyone away from the beach in skimpy gear will face a fine.

Bonking on the beach will also be outlawed, with randy culprits facing jail.

Tourism minister Alberto del Hierro said: “It is not normal to go around the market or tourist sites in a thong. One should not be allowed to walk the streets or enter public buildings in unseemly apparel. It gives the city a low-class look.”

Lets face it Salou is a shithole anyway but will it effect Pisos Barcelona sales in the rest of Catalunya?

Property Corruption in Tarragona?

2010-06-26T06:39:00.000-07:00

The chief prosecutor of the Audiencia de Tarragona, Xavier Jou, filed an appeal before the courts decision on the ground that there was evidence of crime in the sales transaction of a property associated with the revision of the Urban Plan of the Municipality (POUM). la Audiencia de Tarragona reopens corruption case against former Salou mayor and his son

La Audiencia de Tarragona has reopened the case of alleged corruption against the former mayor of Salou, Esteve Ferran, and his son, Ferran Esteve Gombau, after accepting the appeal filed by the Prosecution.

As reported by Onda Cero, following this decision, the magistrate's court number 4 Tarragona should reopen the case, which was closed in December 2009. Both the former mayor and his son, former Town Planning officer, are charged with crimes of breach of trust, influence peddling and insider trading in various urban developments.

La Audiencia de Tarragona believes now that "there is sufficient evidence of criminal responsibility of defendants." The Office of Tarragona appealed the January 20 decision of the magistrate's court number 4 Tarragona that provisionally terminated the proceedings opened for alleged illegal development in Salou, involving the former mayor Esteve Ferran, his son and nine others.

The investigated urban operation referred to a farm in Emprius, which had been acquired in 1999 for five million pesetas (30,000 euros), and a few years later, in 2004, Ferran Esteve Gombau sold it for 506,445 euros, after that the POUM changed the uses of the area, which became developed.

The proceeding was initiated pursuant to a complaint filed by the prosecution on October 4, 2007 against the former mayor of Salou Ferran Esteve Rivera and his son, both belonging to the political formation then called Ferran Units Per Salou (FUPS).

Ferran Esteve Rivera, left the FUPS, the party he had founded and created, shortly before he was expelled, he plans to attend the upcoming municipal elections topping a new party, Tots Units per Salou.

New Barcelona Impetus in Fabregas Chase

2010-06-19T05:54:00.000-07:00

The New Barcelona president has made it very clear that he continues with great vigor to sign Fabregas the Arsenal midield player and fabregas may soon be looking doing his veyr own Pisos Barcelona property search

Rosell said that he plans to work with Joan Laporta, who will stand down from the role this month, in a bid to secure the transfer of the Arsenal midfield player.

The president-elect, who secured more than 61 per cent of the vote, will meet Pep Guardiola before the coach goes on holiday this week to offer him a new contract and ascertain his transfer requirements.

Arsenal turned down a £29 million offer for Fàbregas, who has intimated that he wants to move. Rosell, 46, was Barcelona vice-president during the start of Laporta’s reign, but the former Nike executive stepped down in 2005 after the pair fell out over the running of the Catalan club.

“When we get together, Laporta will explain at what stage the Cesc situation is at,” Rosell said. “If negotiations are advanced and the coaching staff want the player, we will continue with the negotiations, without doubt.

“Until [Laporta leaves on] July 1, we can’t do anything, but if they need help, we will be the first to give it. If Pep thinks we can lend a hand in terms of making signings, we will. They have the last word.”

The potential sale of Fàbregas would add to Arsenal’s sizeable transfer kitty, which received a further boost yesterday when Ivan Gazidis, the club’s chief executive, said that the club had paid off the loans on redeveloping Highbury, meaning that future property sales would be virtually clear profit. Arsenal have almost 90 apartments to sell — a potential £30 million.

“Highbury Square and our other property developments are now free of debt and generating funds,” Gazidis said. “The club is run responsibly and is in a healthy financial position. That does not mean we have unlimited resources, but it does mean we have sufficient funds to invest without incurring unsustainable debt. We will do this on the basis of Arsène Wenger’s assessments, using our resources to supplement the squad intelligently, so that we can take that vital step forward.”

Brave words from Arsenal but Fabregas to Barca looks a certainty

Spain unveils proposed labour market reform

2010-06-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

MADRID — Spain, the Socialist government on Friday unveiled details of its proposed labour market reform that is aimed at reviving economic growth and allaying jitters over its public finances.

Among the measures included in the draft published by the labour ministry is the creation of a government-sponsored fund for each worker that could be used by firms to pay a portion of an employee's severance in case of a dismissal.

The fund, modelled after a system in place in Austria, would be set up in 2012.

The reformed labour law would also limit the length of fixed-term contracts to two years, with the possibility of an extension of one year, and allow companies to reduce worker hours in a downturn instead of dismissing staff.

Spain's unemployment rate has soared to 20 percent of the workforce -- the second highest in the European Union after Latvia -- since the collapse of a property bubble at the end of 2008.

Many economists blame the high jobless rate on the high cost of firing workers in Spain, which makes employers reluctant to hire staff and encourages the use of temporary contracts that have few benefits and rights.

Nearly one in four Spanish employees, 24.3 percent, were on temporary contracts during the first quarter of this year, according to national statistics agency INE.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's cabinet will approve the labour reform on Wednesday and it will then be voted on by parliament on June 22 where his socialist government are seven seats short of a majority.

"It's going to be a substantial labour reform for our labour market, and I trust it will have majority support in parliament," Zapatero told reporters on Thursday during an official visit to Italy.

Last month the assembly passed the government's 15-billion-euro austerity package, which includes cuts to public workers' salaries, by just one vote as a number of government backbenchers either abstained or voted against the plan.

The government is pushing ahead with its own version of the labour law reform after talks between unions, employers and the government to reach a consensus collapsed Thursday after nearly two years of meetings.

Spain's two largest unions, the CCOO and the UGT, have threatened a general strike if the government unilaterally imposes reforms that hurt workers.

Spain Orders Banks Clean Up

2010-06-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Bank of Spain has ordered the country's lenders to face up to bad debts and set aside reserves of up to 30pc on property for sale in Spain holdings in a bid to restore global confidence in the Spanish financial system after weeks of investor flight.

Caja Cantabria, one of the four Spanish regional banks forced to merge after the Bank of Spain took control of CajaSur. The new rules target the savings banks or cajas that account for the lion's share of the €445bn (£377bn) of property debt accumulated during the credit boom, when real interest rates were negative.

The authorities acted after severe strains in the inter-bank market had begun to raise questions about the ability of Spanish lenders to access routine funds from global peers. Deutsche Bank said Spanish lenders need to refinance €125bn by late 2011. "Liquidity is our main area of concern. Savings banks are in a very weak and risky position," it said.

No Spanish bank has raised money on the capital markets for a month. They are relying on the European Central Bank's lifeline. ECB funding has reached €89bn, the highest level since the Lehman Brothers crisis.

The new rules will force lenders to write down bad debts within a year instead of stretching out the pain for up to six years. They must set aside reserves on €60bn of foreclosed property still sitting on their books at face value, using a rising scale of up to 30pc. Santander and BBVA have already done this.

"Spanish accounting was completely out of line with the rest of Europe," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas. "It had reached a point where investors no longer believed in Spanish balance sheets because equity ratios are distorted by overvalued holdings of real estate. This move was absolutely the right thing to do. You can't camouflage bad debts any longer. Those days are over," he said.

The Bank of Spain risks opening a Pandora's Box since nobody knows how many cajas are insolvent once loans are marked-to-market. Last weekend it seized CajaSur, a 150 year-old lender in Cordoba controlled by the Catholic Church. The lender lost €596m last year, much of it on holiday homes on the Costa del Sol.

The regulator said the measures would cut bank earnings by 10pc on average but warned of a "very heterogeneous" effect, a polite way of saying that it will purge cajas that ran amok. The crackdown will bring matters to a head rapidly, forcing cajas to disgorge property holdings onto the market. This is a gamble, risking a house-price crash that could tip Spain deeper into debt deflation.

Caixa Catalunya said the stock of unsold homes reached 926,000 last year. Madrid consultants RR de Acuña are gloomier, saying buildings in the pipeline will push the overhang to 1.6m and will take six years to clear. New home starts have fallen 90pc from their peak in 2007.

Santiago Lopez from Credit Suisse said the new rules may prove "the last straw" for weak cajas but praised the central bank for "finally deciding to get tough".

He said the non-performing loan rate in Spain is 5.33pc but past interventions by the central bank revealed "dramatic" rises in NPL ratios after a fresh audit. Once the full truth comes out on CajaSur we will know how bad the picture is for others.

Mr Lopez said Spain's Achilles Heel is private debt of 211pc of GDP. This is much like Britain (213pc), but takes places in the very different context of deflation. Spain cannot easly grow its way out of the crisis because it is structurally overvalued within the EMU.

Regulators are hoping to break the political resistance to shotgun mergers or debt restructuring. Four other cajas have been ordered to merge already. The policy of throwing banks together entails its own dangers, risking a repeat of the Lloyds TSB deal with HBOS or a string of 1990s mergers in Japan where bad banks polluted good banks. There is no magic wand to conjure away a stock of bad debt.

Caixa Catalunya Are Real Barstads

2010-06-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

Bomba Elias, a Spanish maker of pumps and filters, had to forgo orders and shed 40 percent of its workforce after Caixa Catalunya canceled credit lines of 750,000 euros ($912,000).

The family that owns Componentes Electricos Inco SL, a producer of cables and switches in Sabadell, near Barcelona, was forced to sell a building to keep the company afloat when three savings banks pulled 380,000 euros of credit.

Their fate underscores how the worsening state of Spain’s savings banks, which account for more than half of the country’s outstanding loans, has squeezed companies in the euro region’s fourth-largest economy. The banks, known as “cajas,” are scaling back lending as rising defaults on Spanish luxury property loans and shrinking revenue erode profits and eat into capital. They lack shareholders to tap for funds and have seen their own borrowing costs climb.

“The cajas are weak and if they can’t fund themselves, it’s obvious they can’t lend to us,” said Francesc Elias, the owner of Bomba Elias, a company with about 20 employees based in Rubi, near Barcelona.

Their drag on the economy adds urgency to the Bank of Spain’s attempts to buttress the cajas by pushing ailing lenders to merge with stronger partners and by seizing those that are insolvent. The central bank took control of CajaSur, a bank based in Cordoba and controlled by the city’s Roman Catholic cathedral, on May 22. CajaSur lost 596 million euros last year.

Lending Shrinks

Since then, at least 16 cajas said they are in merger talks. The number of the regional savings banks may decline to about 20 from 45, Finance Minister Elena Salgado has said.

After expanding fivefold during Spain’s decade-long property boom, overall lending by savings banks shrank last year for the first time since at least 1962 and contracted a further 1 percent in the first three months of this year, according to data from the Bank of Spain.

Caixa Catalunya said in a statement that while lower demand for credit and “current expectations about the viability of business projects” have led to a reduction in lending, the bank continues to provide financing. The Barcelona-based company is merging with Caixa Tarragona and Caixa Manresa to create a bank with 81 billion euros of assets.

Earnings at the cajas fell 46 percent to 3.27 billion euros in 2009, according to Spain’s savings bank association. Commercial banks, Banco Santander SA and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, the nation’s biggest lenders, earned 10 billion euros, down 16 percent. Cajas’ assets total 1.34 trillion euros, compared with 1.47 trillion euros at the commercial banks.

‘Too Slow’

Righting the savings banks has become a priority as the government seeks to restore economic growth and tackle its budget deficit, said Peter Braendle, who helps manage about $51 billion at Swisscanto Asset Management in Zurich.

“The Spanish government was too slow to address the caja problem,” said Braendle. “It’s a job that now has to be done.”

Spain forecasts a budget shortfall of 9.3 percent of gross domestic product this year, equal to the deficit projected for Greece by the European Commission. Spain is struggling to persuade investors it can reduce the deficit, even as government cost-cutting threatens to stifle an economic recovery.

The yield premium investors demand to hold Spanish 10-year government bonds instead of German bunds rose to a euro-era record of 188 basis points yesterday. A basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point.

‘Obstacle’ to Growth

The government will push to reform the law governing cajas by introducing mechanisms that will make it easier for them to raise capital while preserving “key elements” of their mission to apportion part of their profits to social programs, Salgado said in a May 31 interview.

Currently, “the only way for many of the cajas to get liquidity is to reduce the size of their balance sheets,” said Juan Jose Toribio, a professor at the University of Navarra’s Barcelona-based IESE business school. “It’s a serious obstacle to growth.”

Savings banks helped fuel economic growth of almost 4 percent a year from 1998 through 2007 by increasingly turning from retail lending to financing Spain’s real-estate boom, said Simon Maughan, an analyst at MF Global in London.

Excessive lending strained a model that doesn’t provide the tools to replenish capital, he said.

Caja Expansion

Cajas granted 243 billion euros of the 454 billion euros in outstanding loans for real-estate activity or construction, according to the Bank of Spain. The cajas raised their number of branches to about 25,000 by 2008, an increase of almost 50 percent over the previous decade, even as the number of commercial bank branches fell about 10 percent.

The bubble burst in the second quarter of 2008 when the Spanish economy entered an almost two-year recession. Spain’s economy will shrink 0.4 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund predicts, after a 3.6 percent contraction in 2009.

The gap between savings banks’ loans and deposits was 140 billion euros in March, a legacy of the industry’s reliance on wholesale debt markets to finance the credit boom. Deposits have leached from the cajas at a pace of 6.6 billion euros a month this year, reducing the industry’s retail funding base by 2.6 percent since December, according to central bank data.

‘Genie’ in Bottle

“The question now is ‘can they put the caja genie back into its bottle?’” said Maughan.

Merging cajas that plan to tap funds the government set aside to rescue ailing lenders will have to show how they plan to boost efficiency, reorganize management and cut over- capacity, according to the Bank of Spain. That may lead to branch closures and a further contraction in lending.

A 1977 royal decree helped pass oversight of the cajas to an array of groups, including local politicians and customers, an arrangement that Toribio, who was head of finance policy at Spain’s Economy Ministry at the time, has said was a mistake because it weakened risk management.

Savings banks including Caja Madrid, founded in 1702 by a priest using alms to fund loans for the destitute and masses for the dead, trace their origins to pawnbrokers that emerged in 15th century Italy and Spain.

Some analysts say the government should ditch the caja model and make them into companies with publicly traded shares. Their investors could include foundations that would fund social spending through dividends.

The inability of cajas to replenish capital “is a serious problem and one that should be eliminated straightaway,” said Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “I don’t see any reason for the cajas model to survive.”

Yolanda Pomare, a director of Componentes Electricos Inco, the Sabadell-based cable- and switch-maker, said the removal of the company’s credit line in 2008 “almost closed us down

Illegal British Taxis in Costa Brava

2010-06-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

Undercover inspectors are cracking down on dozens of British cabbies who are working illegally on the Costa Brava and undercutting the Spanish taxi drivers.

The Brits charge up to 30% less to take holidaymakers to airports at Barcelona and Girona from resorts such as Lloret de Mar and Blanes.

Authorities say the bandit cabbies avoid paying fees so don't have official permits and have done dodgy deals with hotels to find fares.

one worker at calella said: "I get 10% of the fare just for calling one of these taxis."

They should try that with Malaga taxi drivers who denounce any company picking up clients wanting to buy Costa del Sol Property.

Kylie Minogue or Simon Cowell

2010-05-31T07:44:00.000-07:00

In one corner we have the wonderful and beautiful Kylie Minogue representing Costa Brava and its property and the other side of the divide we have Simon Cowelll representing Costa del Sol property and Marbella . For me Kylie already ahead well that what happens if you should be so lucky.

Now lets look at some fact Kylie has her place in Costa Brava an amazing place for property investment where property prices didn’t decrease in the worst worldwide recession known in my lifetime and Costa del Sol prices plummeted. So its 1-0 to Kylie.

Where Simon draws level is that Marbella has everything you could possibly want from night life to tranquillity and an all year round summer climate where Costa Brava only really gets it from May to October. I think Kylie would however tell Simon where to stick his nightlife as she obviously wants a place to relax after her world travels.

Lastly where Kylie trounces all over Simon is the quality of the restaurants in Costa Brava, probably the best in the world outside of Lyon and Paris. El Buli is the number One restaurant in the world for the past 3 years.

So there you have it Kylie wins but she was always going to do from this blogger as has always been in my head

So what do you think Kylie or Simon?

Spain Facing its Own Tensions

2010-05-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

The food bank in Vic, 40 miles north of Barcelona, occupies an old bakery in a side street. Each day hundreds of unemployed stream in to collect handouts of bread, milk, pasta and other necessities. The overwhelming majority are immigrants, predominantly Moroccans and sub-Saharan Africans who flocked to Vic in the past few years to work on building sites or in the huge pig farms and meat factories that surround the town and give it its distinctive smell.

At least 10,000 came, swelling Vic’s population by a quarter. They did the hard, dirty work and were welcomed. Not any more. Half lost their jobs when Spain’s construction bubble burst in 2008 and brought the good times to an abrupt end.

A deeply unpopular €15 billion (£12.7 billion) austerity package rushed through parliament yesterday will make life even harder. On top of that, the immigrants are now the target of Platform for Catalonia, Spain’s equivalent of the BNP, which is based in Vic. “Control immigration — stop the crisis,” its leaflets proclaim.

“They insult us. They say maybe we’re the cause of the crisis, that we take their jobs. It’s not fair and it’s not nice,” said Mercy Omoroagbon, 30, as she collected her handout. She arrived from Nigeria in 2002, lost both her cleaning jobs last year and now lives off the charity of friends.

“They say the Spanish can’t work because of the immigrants. It’s not true. We did the work the Spanish didn’t want or wouldn’t do,” said Joy Ekechukwu, 33, another Nigerian who came to Spain 11 years ago, lost her factory job and now struggles to support her two young children.

Our previous stop was Bergamo, in the foothills of the Italian Alps. An early-morning flight from Milan took us to Vic, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, but the similarities end there. Bergamo is a rich city waiting for the hard times to begin. Vic is already in deep distress.

Unemployment is 16 per cent, which is better than the national average of 20 per cent because meat is Vic’s biggest industry and people have to eat. Property prices have slumped 30 to 40 per cent, 500 homes have been repossessed and new houses and apartments stand empty.

“The economy here is pretty dreadful,” said Xavier Troy, a bar manager.

The new austerity measures will cut the pay of Vic’s 400 civil servants, stop the council taking out bank loans for building projects and freeze state pensions. The town’s revenues fell 10 per cent in 2009 and were set to fall another five points this year even before this latest belt tightening.

Locally and nationally, trade unions are planning strikes and demonstrations, saying that Spain must reduce its 11 per cent budget deficit, but that the rich should bear the burden.

“It’s class war here. Those who earn more should pay more in taxes,” said Miguel Sánchez, leader of the Workers Commission in Vic.

More ominously, the Platform is using the crisis to foment hostility towards immigrants, threatening Spain’s reputation for tolerance.

“We call it an invasion,” says Josep Anglada, 50, the Platform’s president, a snappily dressed former property salesman who is one of his party’s four councillors in Vic and one of nineteen across Catalonia.

He does not mince his words. Sitting outside a bar in Vic’s elegant old Plaza Mayor, he blames immigrants for rising crime, drug trafficking and delinquency, and for all manner of antisocial behaviour because “they are used to living in the jungle.

“Immigrants bring nothing positive. They receive much more than they contribute to the State,” he says. All illegal immigrants should be expelled and the long-term unemployed repatriated.

Spain has had little time for hard-right parties since General Franco’s dictatorship ended in 1975 but the Platform’s foes admit that it is gaining strength. They will stage an anti-racism demonstration in the Plaza Mayor tomorrow.

“There’s been a rise in tension and there’s potential for xenophobic confrontation,” said Antoni Iborra, a lawyer working with Vic’s immigrants who says they have been barred from some bars and discos.

Josep Burgaya i Riera, Vic’s deputy mayor, said: “They’re using the crisis to try to whip up anti-immigrant feeling. They throw petrol on the fire. There’s no violence on the streets but there’s a sense of bad feeling.”

The economic crisis is acute. The unions are mutinous. Racial tensions are rising. In every sense Vic, like Spain, faces a long hot summer.

Costa Brava tragedy

2010-05-19T23:59:00.001-07:00

'Costa Brava tragedy mum Lianne Smith killed her kids because she feared they would be taken into care'
COSTA Brava horror mum Lianne Smith killed her two kids because she feared they would be taken from her, it was claimed last night.
Smith's fugitive husband Martin was arrested in Spain just days before the double murder and sent back to Britain to face child rape charges.
And Spanish reports claim the 43-year-old mum smothered Rebecca, five, and 11-month-old Daniel because she was worried that they would be taken into care over the allegations.
The children's bodies were found on Tuesday in a hotel room in Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava, 45 miles from the scene of Martin Smith's arrest in Barcelona.
It's claimed she used a plastic bag to kill the tots, after leaving a note on the door that said: "Do not disturb. My kids are ill."
Smith phoned reception and asked staff to call police and an ambulance. Asked why, she replied: "You will see."
Police who raced to the scene found the bodies of Rebecca and Daniel .
Smith, who is said to have confessed, had covered the corpses neatly with a blanket.
She is being held on suspicion of murder. Reports in Spain claim she suffered a breakdown after her husband was arrested.
Police in Lloret de Mar yesterday searched dustbins near the scene of the tragedy, looking for drugs Smith might have taken herself or given to her children.
The Smiths had been listed as missing since December 2007, when Lianne and Rebecca disappeared from their home in Lichfield, Staffordshire.
Martyn Smith, a self-styled spirit medium who appeared on TV's Most Haunted, failed to turn up for a court date in the child sex case in January 2008. It's believed he fled to Spain with his wife and daughter.
The family lived together in Spain and baby Daniel was born there.
British cops soon became convinced the family had fled abroad and called in Interpol to help trace them. And the long search ended when Martin Smith was arrested by Spanish officers on May 7.
He was extradited to the UK this week. Smith, who is originally from Cumbria, appeared before magistrates in Carlisle yesterday, facing 13 charges of sex attacks on a girl aged between seven and 18.
He is accused of six counts of child rape, six of gross indecency and one of attempted rape. The allegations date from between 1997 and 2005 and the offences are all said to have taken place in the Cumbria area.
Smith, 44, was left "distraught" on Tuesday night when police told him Rebecca and Daniel were dead.
He was unshaven at yesterday's brief court hearing and wore a blue zip-up top. He gave an address in Barcelona, spoke only to confirm his name and details, and was remanded in custody until June 7.
Before he disappeared, Smith billed himself as a medium and appeared on Living TV's Most Haunted as an expert in parapsychology.
He joined presenter Yvette Fielding on a ghost hunt at Brougham Hall near Penrith. He also worked as a sound engineer, in a panto company, and at a holiday camp.
He was the father of little Daniel, but not of Rebecca. Sources say her real dad has flown to Spain to dentify her body.
Lianne Smith arrived at the Miramar Hotel in Lloret de Mar with the children by car on Saturday. She had booked a room in advance and paid for a four-night stay.
Guests at the four-star hotel said they often saw Rebecca playing on the balcony of the family's triple room, room 101. Staff told how the little girl would wave to them as they passed.
A French guest from the room above the family said he saw Lianne on Tuesday morning, hours before the children's bodies were found.
"She was pale and had bags under her eyes," he told reporters. "She looked bad.
"The previous day we'd been struck by the fact that her daughter spent a lot of time playing alone on the balcony, which is not a place to leave such a small girl.
"We are horrified that this awful crime has been committed in the room below us."
Another guest, Estonian Andres Sonajalg, 49, said he saw Smith at breakfast on Tuesday and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
He added: "My wife and I were really sorry we couldn't do anything to help her and the kids. We didn't know anything was wrong."
Andres's wife, Siiri, 47, said: "I feel very sad. I keep thinking about what happened.
"I didn't sleep very well last night. I was wondering what the mother was feeling when she woke up on Tuesday morning."
Smith made her fateful call to reception at around 2pm on Tuesday. Spanish newspaper reports claim she left a written confession at the scene.
After finding the bodies in the room, police brought her downstairs for questioning.
They then took her back to room 101 - in handcuffs - to reconstruct what had happened to the children.
About four hours later, Smith was driven to a local police station. A crowd of onlookers jeered at her outside the hotel as detectives put her in a car.
She is now being held at a police station in the nearby town of Blanes, and has been questioned by the investigating judge appointed to take charge of the case.
It's understood she will also be seen by a psychiatrist.
The bodies of Rebecca and Daniel were due to be examined yesterday by a pathologist at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Gerona.
Sources said the doctor would check for signs that Rebecca had been sexually abused. The results of the post mortems were expected within 24 hours.
Police want to speak to a British man seen with Smith in Lloret de Mar before the killings. The man is not a suspect.

David Villa Signs for Barcelona

2010-05-19T23:52:00.001-07:00

Barcelona have snatched David Villa from Valencia for £34.2 Million pounds, it was revealed earlier today.
The Spanish international is expected to arrive in Catalunya on Thursday before taking a medical on Friday morning.
He will be unveiled to an open Camp Nou at 13.30 that afternoon.
Attempts to sign the illustrious forward failed last summer, leaving the freshly crowned Liga Champions having to settle for Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The big Swede hasn't since lived up to expectations and, despite a healthy 21-goal season, could well find himself on his way out this summer with reports linking him to Manchester City.
However, FC Barcelona Technical Secretary, Txiki Begiristain, has insisted, "Ibra is not for sale."
When asked if Ibrahimovic had fulfilled initial expectations after a rusty end to the season, he was keen to address that the club must, "asses what he's done from the beginning" and that "he brings a lot to the team."
With the addition of David Villa, the Barca front line could hardly look more appetizing, the goal machine likely to be linking up with magician Lionel Messi, and impressive youngsters, Pedro and Bojan.
Villa racked up an astonishing 107 goals in 166 league matches in his five-year spell at Los Che and is a regular front runner in La Liga's golden boot award

Catalunya

2010-05-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

ATRONIC INSTALLS COMPLETE GAMING SOLUTION AT GRAN CASINO COSTA BRAVA

2010-04-18T06:05:00.000-07:00

ATRONIC is providing a comprehensive and unique end-to-end solution to Gran Casino Costa Brava on Spain's east coast.

ATRONIC is now installing the complete systems solution including online platform and modular systems software, as well as its latest linked gaming solutions and top performing core games, which are scheduled to go live when the casino opens in July 2010.

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Built with proven hardware based on recognized industry standards, CRYSTAL.net gives your casino floor more efficiency, flexibility, entertainment, and power, so operators can spend more time on strategic initiatives and less on downtime and operating costs. CRYSTAL.net integrates seamlessly with ATRONIC software modules such as Star|MARKETING, Star|JACKPOTS, Star|CAGE, and Star|TABLES.

The casino will also feature the latest ATRONIC slots and games, including the multi-level bonus link STARGATE SG-1 on the premium double screen e? SLANT cabinet, and based on the blockbuster movie and internationally popular TV series. Furthermore the globally proven KING KONG CASH, multi-level progressive link, and DEAL OR NO DEALTM THE SHOWTM on the e2TM cabinet, as well as several core titles such as Treasure HuntTM and Toucan TreasuresTM.

"We're impressed with the power, efficiency, and flexibility of ATRONIC's complete casino solution," said Francisco Fiol, Casino Manager with Gran Casino Costa Brava.

"With the installation of this complete solution, Gran Casino Costa Brava is poised to provide its players with an optimal entertainment experience."

Drunken British students cause chaos on Costa Dorada

2010-04-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

British students have sparked outrage during a drunken spring break in Spain.

About 5,000 youngsters aged 18 to 23 gathered on the Costa Dorada for five days of late night-drinking and debauchery.

Just 24 hours after the partying started in the town of Salou, five people required hospital treatment for alcohol poisoning. One man broke his leg when he was accidentally run over by a police car and residents say streets are covered in vomit and urine.

Maria Gomez, spokeswoman for a local residents' association, said: "This kind of drunken tourism is deplorable but were happy to take the money."

Saloufest, which has been running since 2002 and shows what a difference there is between the wonderful Costa Brava and the deplorable Costa Dorada

Why Do People Love Barcelona?

2010-02-21T10:01:00.000-08:00

Under the Strategic Tourism Plan, the City commissioned a study to ascertain the opinion of visitors and potential tourists. A part of this study produced a survey of people aged 18 to 70 years from different places like Holland, France, Germany, UK, U.S. or Japan, as well as visitors from the rest of Spain.
Barcelona City Council undertake study and find tourists overall view of the City, there are some salient facts
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Gaudi, the climate and its Mediterranean style are the crucial areas that attract tourists to Barcelona, but most agree that it is overcrowded and unsafe.

These are the salient findings of a study by Barcelona City Council in order to find what image of the Catalan capital foreigners have while visiting the city. The analysis of the opinions collected shows that icons like Barca, the Sagrada Familia or the Olympic Games are the most easy to identify with the city. In contrast, visitors from other areas of Spain also identify the city with the political independence or Catalans, who consider the city less attractive.

Under the Strategic Tourism Plan, the City commissioned a study to ascertain the opinion of visitors and potential tourists. A part of this study produced a survey of people aged 18 to 70 years from different places like Holland, France, Germany, UK, U.S. or Japan, as well as visitors from the rest of Spain.

The results are generally positive. In fact, foreigners put Barcelona on a par with major European cities like Paris, London, Rome, Madrid or Milan. The study found that the most attractive to foreigners is the quality of life and its Mediterranean style. Up to 32.4% of respondents pointed out these aspects.

Yet the artistic heritage with works of Antoni Gaudi, also appeared in 30.2% of respondents as the element that most appeals to visitors and potential tourists. The leisure and cultural activities are also an important attraction for 17.9% of respondents.

19% of foreigners believed that Barcelona is "overcrowded" and believes this is the most negative aspect of the Catalan capital, and 12.6% of tourists said that insecurity and crime are elements which they dislike about the city. Being an expensive city (9.1%) and dirty, noisy and polluted (7.9%) are among the negative aspects of the image people have of Barcelona.

All very interesting stuff and when coupled with Barcelona's actual location and proxmimity to France and Italy its not surprising why Barcelona is such an atractive place for tourists and with Costa Toursim falling it will be Cities such as Valencia and Barcelona that will be looking to increase tourist numbers

Costa Brava Property Totally Immune to the Spanish property crisis

2010-02-13T07:18:00.000-08:00

It seems that the Costa Brava property Market is totally immune to the Spanish property crisis with prices holding there value and prospective buyers being very disappointed at the prices being asked in the current climate.

However when you look at where Costa Brava is and the landscape and its proximity to France it is no surprise that Costa Brava is holding its value and in some places like Begur prices are actually on the increase. In many ways Cadaques is very much the Saint Tropez of Spain with the world’s number one restaurant El Builli close by.

Also when you consider that there just isn’t the oversupply of property you get in other Costas of Spain you can see why it is a place that is unlikely to come down in price anytime soon.

Most importantly though is if Costa Brava can whether this current Spanish property recession it’s unlikely to suffer anytime soon.

Salou incorporates 3 New Local Police

2010-01-19T10:53:00.000-08:00

Mayor Salou, Pere GranadosAlong with the councilman of Public Safety, Alberto del Hierro and Councilman of Internal Services Jesus Barragan have given this morning to congratulate the three new local police officers who have joined the service from today. The inspector Jose Luis Gargallo has presented three new police Gerard Roig, Alberto Miranda and Adolfo Lleixà who they entrusted with the task of ensuring the "highest and best service to the citizen as one of the most important demands of the citizens of Salou and thousands of people who visit us, "said the mayor. Meanwhile, Councilman Citizen Security Alberto del Hierro, Has been congratulated "for having passed the tests, harsh" in which over one hundred applicants. "In Salou we do not settle for candidates who pass are the best agents, "said Iron.
With these three new additions becomes the template of 78 agents and on 22 March, will add 14 more than temporary that will meet the increased population that comes with Easter and the summer season

New Airport Set Up in Catalunya

2010-01-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

Passengers across Spain have a reason to smile as a new airport was opened at Lleida in the Catalunya region on Sunday. The Generalitat Regional Government in Catalunya is behind the funding of the entire project of building the airport, which has an international classification as well.

Lleida airportAlthough the airport was first used today for the landing of an Airbus 320 Vueling flight from Barcelona, commercial flights will begin on February 5. Jose Montilla, Generalitat de Cataluña President, was on board the flight which also carried about 160 journalists.

The airport is believed to be able to cater to 50,000 passengers during its first year, and the number is expected to steadily swell to 395,000 users per year in the next ten years.

Salou Exhibition

2010-01-12T11:46:00.000-08:00

Salou. Costa Dorada. La Obra Social Caixa Sabadell, ICES (International Center Escarré for Ethnic Minorities and Nations) and the GELA (Study Group on Endangered Languages) have produced the displays the languages of the Catalans, That passes through the Ayuntamiento de Salou from 12 to 22 January, With an organization that shared with City Hall. This is a new exhibition designed to disclose diversity of languages living in Catalonia, which are the basis of its cultural wealth and respect for tolerance.

Linguistic diversity in a country of seven million
Catalonia has always had a strong tradition of openness to influences from other cultures, as evidenced by the diversity of origins of many foreign words that are now commonly used in our house. This relationship has been particularly marked in the last turn of the millenniumWhen demographic changes due to migration have intensified. Coming to a close the first decade of the century, when we are more than seven million people, many Catalans who are not born here, but are joining with their cultural background and, especially, with its linguistic contributions.

The uncertainties of the new linguistic landscape

In Catalonia there are speakers languages almost all Indo-European branches, More than half of the language families of Africa, Asia and Oceania in several groups of Native American languages, plus several sign languages and creoles. The result is a contemporary linguistic heritage of the first magnitude, but subject to the uncertainties of the modern world, with significant questions open. It can perpetuate all languages outside their places of origin? We need to encourage their survival? What role plays the Catalan language in this new landscape?

The contents of the exhibition

The exhibition provides objective data on all languages spoken in Catalonia, from increased immigration quotas that have opened their eyes to all Europeans. Language diversity can no longer be seen as a punishment but as a combined heritage that improves communication between people. Across 12 panels with a cleverly structured information, the sample provides data on issues as varied as the origin of the name of the people, the wealth of sign languages, new family structures, communication across language and cultural relations systems, demonstrating that creativity does not depend on the scope a geographic tongue. Everything, in a context where public initiatives, official or volunteer, in favor of minority communities are proliferating worldwide.

This Friday, January 15 at 11:30 hours attended by Mayor of Salou, Pere Granados, teaching with Councilman David Ninyo. At this time is expected to have a group of schoolchildren visiting the exhibition Europe. Anybody who wants to visit the exhibition may do so Monday through Friday from 9 to 13h and from 15 to 18h.

Barcelona Sex Change for Teenager

2010-01-12T11:36:00.000-08:00

A 16-year-old Spaniard has had a sex change operation, becoming the country's first minor to undergo a procedure that few countries in the world allow for people so young, a doctor said Tuesday.

The two-and-a-half hour surgery was performed in Barcelona three weeks ago and the patient is doing fine, reconstructive surgeon Ivan Manero, who did the surgery, told a news conference in Spain's second largest city.

Manero said the patient had been undergoing hormonal and psychiatric treatment for two years, after deciding he wanted to undergo surgery to have the body of a woman. The boy ''said he felt like a woman from the age of four or five,'' Manero said. The patient's name has not been disclosed.

The surgery was authorized by a judge, as required by Spanish law for minors seeking such an operation.

Probably fewer than 50 sex change operations are carried out each year in Spain, said Monica Martin, founder of the Spanish Association of Transsexuals.

The association's position on minors is that they think very, very carefully before undergoing such surgery.

''We are not against it, but it is a life-changing decision,'' Martin told The Associated Press. ''It is a good idea to wait until the person has achieved maturity, legal and otherwise.''

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sets guidelines for when to offer sex changes that many Western countries follow.

According to their guidelines, surgeries should not be carried out prior to adulthood, or prior to a real-life experience of at least 2 years in the gender role of the sex with which the adolescent identifies. It says the threshold age should be 18.

In Spain, regional governments run their own health care systems and three of them -- Catalonia in the northeast, the province that includes Madrid, and Andalucia in the south -- pay for sex change operations.

In this case, the boy's family paid for the surgery in a private facility. No state-run hospital in Spain performs it on minors.

Spain is among just a handful of countries in the world that where the law specifically allows minors to undergo sex change operations, said Jameson Green, a manager at the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health, at the University of California in San Francisco. Australia and the Netherlands are others, he said.

There have also been a few sex change operations carried out on minors in Germany. But these countries are the exception.

In Thailand, for instance, transsexuals and transgender men are a common sight, appearing on soap operas and working at all levels of Bangkok society. But the rules on sex change surgery stipulate that patients must be over 18, undergo a mental evaluation before the surgery and continued follow-up visits with a psychiatrist afterward. Candidates cross-dress for a year.

In the United States, there is no federal law -- and few if any state laws -- explicitly banning transsexual surgery for minors.

There, the standards are that such surgery should not take place before age 16, and cases like the Spanish one are rare but not unheard of, Green said.

''Generally, I think what people are concerned about is that young people don't have the capacity to know who they are. And I think we are learning -- and this is one of the reasons that you are seeing this happening in Spain -- that actually in some cases indeed young people do know who they are.''

La Caixa of Catalunya being a crook bank yet again

2010-01-03T05:09:00.000-08:00

Its no real suprise is it as we all know banks are just legalised crooks who obviously have no intention of honouring there obligations.

Scores of consumers gathered outside the headquarters of Spain’s Caixa Catalunya in Barcelona recently, demanding refunds for overcharges related to variable mortgage loans.

On November 26th in the Plaza Antoni Maura, Barcelona, consumers demanded Caixa Catalunya President Narcís Serra adhere to the ruling by the Supreme Court of July 28, 2009 condemning it to refund overcharges, plus interest, for the practice of rounding off on variable-interest mortgages.

However, according to Ausbanc, Caixa Catalunya has reserved the right to act when it is ready – and not before.

During the gathering, Ausbanc President Luis Pineda reproached Caixa Catalunya and its attitude "of contempt" toward the more than 150,000 families that are awaiting it to execute the sentence of the Supreme Court.

Set against this "negligent" position, Pineda asked those present to close all accounts and withdraw savings from the company, while it decides to deal with the ruling.

Moreover, he stressed that Ausbanc will not spare any effort in pressing for the refund of monies overcharged by Caixa Catalunya to its clients and noted that: “This time we have made our demands outside their doors – next time, we will do it inside,” he said.

As well as consumers, business delegates were also present. The Secretary of the consumer collective for the Sant Pere of Barcelona neighbourhood, Pere Núñez I Blasco, joined the demonstration to protest against the bank’s refusal to renew polices and personal loans – a policy which has forced a large number of small and medium businesses to close.

Others were present in support of Ausbanc and consumers hit by the closure of Forum and Afinsa. During his speech, Ausbanc’s president also called on financial concerns and public opinion to back the rights of banking consumers and for a just solution to those affected by the closure of Forum and Afinsa as well as other financial injustices.

Lets hope these people get the justice they deserve but with Spanish banks one cant be too hopeful

elBulli Restaurant - The Worlds Greatest ?

2010-01-02T08:37:00.000-08:00

Ferran Adrià is considered by many to be the greatest chef in the world and his restaurant, El Bulli, to be the greatest restaurant in the world. Located in Roses, Spain, El Bulli is a holy mecca for food lovers. The 35-course taster's menu is a grand experience of tastes, textures, and wonder. An architect of molecular gastronomy, Adrià's creations are designed to surprise and enchant his guests
If you go, plan on making restaurants months in advance. El Bulli serves only dinner, has less than 50 seats, and only makes one sitting. They are also closed from October to March. Of the approximately 2,000 bookings every year, they receive over 400,000 applications. Expect to pay about $150 per person, not including wine.
What can one expect from El Bulli, a restaurant in Cadaques, Costa Brava on the coast of North of Spain, notoriously acclaimed as the best in the world?

Below is a review from 2005 which should give you an insight into the restaurant and we would point out its now much harder in 2010 to get a table than in 2005. That requires sending an e-mail to bulli@elbulli.com. One of the people responsible for reservations will let you know to get back to them in November, December or January, whenever. They won't just put you on the waiting list to avoid the absurdity of waiting time. Everyone is allocated a place on the "first come - first serve basis" - from the time when reservations are accepted.

REVIEW HERE

We made our reservations months in advance, as soon as reservations were accepted, hoping to get any date available in year 2005. We were lucky to get a table, as yearly up to one million people try to book a table – only 8.000 succeed – less then one percent. On the plane, we briefed ourselves with concepts and methods of chef Adrià’s work as we have appreciated this to be a once in a life time experience, one of the things you read in magazines as “Things To Do Before You Die”. Buried under stacks of printed-out articles we read about local Spanish cooking mirroring in Adrià’s kitchen, him and his team searching for new break-throughs in cooking and presenting techniques, challenging taste concepts – maintaining his reputation as the best chef in the world.

Ferran Adrià arrived at El Bulli in 1983. At first he was imitating the French cuisine but had dramatically changed his approach after visiting a symposium in Nice in 1987. There, a young chef asked the famous Jacques Maximin, a leader of Nouvelle cuisine, “What is creativity in cooking?” The reply was that “Creativity means never imitating”. This became a professional credo for Adrià who has a taken it as a rule in his laboratory.

“My approach is to investigate... This takes a team, equipment, money, time. We have one rule here: it has to be new. It may be good, but if we have done it before, it doesn’t matter”, Adriá told Wine Spectator last year. That is why he keeps the restaurant closed for half a year in the winter months as the creative team, comprised of himself, his brother Alberto and Oriol Castro, the principal chef at El Bulli, move to their laboratory of tastes, El Taller (the workshop) in Barcelona striving to create new combinations, preparing about 500 new dishes for the season to come.

We read about Adrià love to provoke, the integration of humor and irony into his dishes. As it mentally prepared us to walk into El Bulli it diminished the element of surprise, the element that Adrià was trying so hard to create throughout the dinner.

Our short vacation revolved around the dinner at El Bulli. Landing in Barcelona, we drove to Roses, a Costa Brava resort about 150 km north towards the French border. Our hotel, Almadraba Park, was positioned on the prettiest lagoon a little bit out of town, with finest sand, strikingly blue waters, bordered by breathtaking rocky drops. As we turned onto the road to Cala Montjoy, where the restaurant lies, it was marked with exclamation marks and warnings of a dangerous route, but that clearly didn’t bother our taxi driver. As our cab was climbing higher and higher into the mountains – a remarkable view was unfolding in front of us – that of the sea, the proud and impregnable cliffs with their abrupt drops, lonely lagoons and the undersized vegetation. We were really in the middle of nowhere and that was just adding to the thrill of the experience. It surely wouldn’t have been as much fun if the world’s best restaurant was just next door or even in a capital city. Cala Monjoy appeared to be a small village and the restaurant looked out to a small sandy beach.

Arriving in time for our reservation we felt nervous as little kids walking in with butterflies in our stomachs. The entrance was full with waiters all dressed in black, who asked if we wanted to visit the kitchen. For me this proposition came completely unexpected, although my husband was aware of this procedure. We walked into a huge room, rather a few joined rooms, covered with shining steel. The night was just starting so most of the kitchen staff, it seemed, were quietly preparing for the night ahead. No buzz yet. Adrià was standing just nearby with a group of other chefs as if silently greeting all of his guests for tonight. He was quite short and strangely pale for a Spaniard but nevertheless easy to recognize.
Inside, the restaurant looked fairly traditional in dissonance with the ground-breaking food they were serving. Once we were seated, and the waiter confirmed that there would be no milk or red meat products for me – allergens that I have notified them of in advance, we were offered a cocktail to start with. It was a Margueritta. Served in a huge ice-cube, the drink was like a slush ice mounted by foam (this year’s new concept prevailing throughout the whole meal) sprinkled with salt from the Himalayas. The waitress grated it like it was Parmesan over a pasta dish in an Italian restaurant. As the salt granules landed on the foam, it was disappearing. The magic show had started and the smiles never left our faces.

Our Marguerittas were accompanied by two olives each. One at a time, they were fished out by waiters from a preserve jar to two little spoons – The Spherical Olives. Once in the mouth, the gentle outer layer burst and an olive tasting liquid excited our taste buds. The service was exceptional – waiters brought food and took the empty plates momentarily. Well, they had to be efficient as they still had to serve us another 26 dishes.

The food menu was set, but the restaurant didn’t offer a matching wine menu. The choice of wines was left up to the guests who could appeal for help to the four full time working sommeliers. Juli Soler, the manager of El Bulli, admits that they like to be authoritarian at El Bulli, telling the customers what to eat and how to eat it. He says that the guests should at least drink what they like. The wine should not marry the dish but instead should refresh and divert. We took the advice of one of the sommeliers and ordered a bottle of local white wine.

The waiters brought two little black jewelry boxes, opened in front of us. Inside, laid a fine-fibered white spring - olive oil. The instructions were to put it on our fingers and into our mouths as a whole. As it came out, we were to get used to sensing food without cutlery that evening.

Then, at once, came an array of appetizers that pleased the eye by difference in texture and color. There were refreshing slices of melon, peeled almonds, fresh basil and spices – all resting on ice cubes in a bucket; parmesan marshmallows and what looked like the American Orio cookies, but made out of black olives. There were spirals of crunchy and mildly spicy carrot chips and mango discs, so delicate that I have almost overseen them at a glance – two almost transparent golden circles joined together by a black olive paste. The variety and originality of serving trays impressed – apparently each year new types of serving dishes were designed to suit chef’s new ideas.

The next appetizer we got was popcorn that came as a huge airy ball – The Popcorn Cloud (Nube de palomitas). We were instructed to eat it in one go and I wondered how? Lifting it with fingers and putting it into the mouth I felt it simply disappearing leaving only the taste of popcorn. No bread was served nor was it going to be served throughout the whole night as if the chef carefully monitored the exact amount of how much we would eat, so there would always be room on our stomachs for his creations.

Two cherries covered with yoghurt powder were served on a glossy dented plate. Then, came the beautiful Golden Egg (Huevo de oro) – a quail egg yolk with a caramelized outer shell sprinkled with sea salt. Once the crunchy outer-shell was broken the mouth filled with the warm liquid. Algae tempura that came next was to be eaten with our hands, dipped into oyster sauce. Then came my least favorite – the truffle jelly covered by what felt like a whisked egg yolk. Lack of substance to chew on and lack of a distinctive taste left me skeptic to this combination. The chefs though quickly recovered my trust with the arrival of the next dish – The Spherical Melon Caviar, served in what looked like an original tin package for Iranian caviar. Refreshing melon drops in passion fruit juice playfully popped in the mouth. Then the waitress brought out two freshly sealed plastic bags filled with a few tiny gherkins, cucumber flowers and peeled almonds in some sort of marinade. Once she cut the plastic bags open we had tweezers to reach for our food and put it in our mouth. The flowers were as tasty as the gherkins.

The next dish was a refreshing peanut ice-cream covered with what looked like snow. It was called The Thaw 2005 (Deshielo 2005). It looked like a colorful variation of spring with a few fragile sprouts standing in a pile of snow, decorated with a yellow flower and some peanuts. This was to refresh our taste buds in time for the array of 8 little main courses starting from seafood and nuts with truffles ending with a scampi lobster and a perfect crunchy chicken wing with oyster sauce.
One of the dishes for deserts was this year’s new-comer – fruits that have been freeze dried by a process of lyophilisation, served with foam. A combination of intensified berry flavor balanced out by the light foam was more successful this time. It also looked strikingly beautiful.

At this point we asked to be seated at the patio, as we have missed out on this opportunity upon arrival – they said it was too windy. Coming from Denmark, where the winds blow right through you all year round, we shouldn’t have let it scare us off, but we obeyed the judgement of the waiter and postponed the patio till later. Now it was time. It was great to have some fresh air. The next desert was prepared right in front of us. The waiter had rolled in a table topped by a large frosted metal box named Teppannitro that served as a cooker to make desert for my companion. The waiter squirted out white foam onto the box and let it “fry” a while before flipping it over in order for it to harden on the other side. The name suggested this invention ran on liquid nitrogen. I received yoghurt coated cherry with slightly sweet rose petals.

Wine Spectator recommends white wines at El Bulli because acid is a better structural match with most dishes then tannin or sugar. Dry white wines, especially sparkling wines, are what generally show best at El Bulli. Throughout the dinner we tried two bottles of whites, a local Spanish one and a Chardonnay. Neither of them matched well with the menu feeling too sour for my taste at times. But I do wonder whether it would even be possible to have a matching wine menu, as the tastes vary so drastically from dish to dish. Throughout the dinner we first got a sweet caramelized egg, then a screamingly salty pistachio ice-cream with a runny truffle filling; one moment we were offered a refreshing nutty ice-cream, the next – mussels with a prevailing sea flavor. It is as if there was a battle of tastes devised to entertain and surprise.

The cost of the food menu came out to be 155 EUR per person – very cheap considering the restaurant’s world-wide fame, the amount of dishes we got (28!), the quality of the ingredients and the amount of staff involved. There were 35 people or more working in the kitchen and another 20 in the restaurant, attentive at every second. That comes down to about one serving person per guest. At the end of the night we have talked to an apprentice in the kitchen, also from Denmark. He said he was working for free and was hoping to stay for another two years, as I believe many do. Some come only for a few months to find inspiration and acquire techniques working for free. Even so, the restaurant just breaks even in expenses. Adrià says he could easily have put up the prices, but he won’t. He prefers establishing other ventures that would provide the profit, like opening a hotel and a catering company in Barcelona. “I could charge a thousand euros for the meal and still book every seat. But that is not the character of El Bulli. We began serving fishermen. I want a fisherman to be able to eat her even now”, said Adriá.

END OF REVIEW

That’s a pretty fantastic review and for those of you wanting to get there. The restaurant is positioned on Cala Monjoi (Cadaques) a small village-camping ground by the sea, 7 km away from Roses – a tourist resort on Costa Brava, on the north of Spain. If you managed to get a reservation in El Bulli take a cab there from Roses. A) It’s a dangerous route, B) you’ll probably want to drink there so it will even be less safe on the way back. Another way you can get to El Bulli from Roses is by boat.

The nearest airport to Roses is in Girona which is about 70 km South-West. The journey would take about an hour and 15 minutes. There is also an airport in Barcelona, 150 km away. This journey takes about 2 hours by car.
There is only one 5 star hotel in the area – Hotel Vistabella. Their beach is not as nice as Almadraba’s, situated a bit further down the coast. Almadraba Park Hotel is a 4 star hotel that makes an emphasis on peace and quite and they are furthest away from the town center with access to an excellent public beach.

There is only one other 4 star hotel in Roses - Hotel Terrazza, situated on the long and broad sandy beach, right in the center of town.

Costa Brava Guide

2010-01-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

The coastal zone of the Costa Brava begins 4kms North of Barcelona and extends to the French border. It is well known for its beaches and resorts, with a scenic and rugged coastline: a succession of coves, cliffs, and mountaintop lookouts dotted along.

Some its areas have been massively dedicated to tourism, but others, such as Tossa de Mar, still retain their original size and fishing village charm.

Other picturesque towns and villages can be foundall along the Costa Brava, as well as the Greek and Roman ruins of Empúries.

Two inland towns make for good day-trips if you're vacationing on the coast. The riverside town of Girona (Gerona in Spanish) features an 13th-century cathedral, an old Jewish quarter, and museums. The Salvador Dalí Museum is a must for lovers of surrealism.

The Costa Brava is known as Spain's sunny 'wild coast'. It is lined with rugged cliffs, sandy inlets and bustling holiday resorts and is home to the worlds greatest restaurant. Here you will find long crescents of sand and shingle and the long beaches of the main resorts where all manners of water sports can be found. Estartit is great for scuba diving. There is a crammed marina here, filled with luxury yachts and one of the best sandy beaches on this part of the coast. Every resort along this stretch of coast has its own character and Tossa de Mar is no exception. Here are British-style pubs, late night clubs and lively bars. The town of Tossa de Mar also has narrow, twisting streets dating back to the 12th century.

Away from the coast you will find a very different Spain. Here you are within Catalonia an area with its own ancient language, traditions and ambience. A distant backdrop of snow-capped mountains lies behind almond groves and orchards and green, rolling hillsides. Visit the vibrant city of Barcelona.
The climate here is a little milder than that of southern Spain which makes it an ideal resort for families with children.

Pineda de Mar is located in Costa del Maresme and has maintained more of its original character than other nearby resorts. The pace here is very relaxing and revolves around three main squares. The coarse, sandy beach is reached by means of several subways that run under the railway line. There may not be such a wide variety of bars here but it is made up for by the wide range of restaurants that offer both Spanish and International cuisine.
Malgrat is also technically on the Costa del Maresme and it is a typical Catalan town that boasts a good weekly market. Located 3km from Pineda. Ceramics and leather are in abundance in the shopping centre, all at good prices. The beach is long and shelves steeply into the sea. It has a long promenade.

Calella, 5km south of Lloret de Mar has a beach nearly 3km long with a water sports centre and a sports centre. The resort has a vibrant nightlife and a wide selection of bars and restaurants. Close by is the resort of Blanes, the most southerly of the resorts on the Costa Brava. Here you will find a holiday with a more Spanish flavour and the nightclubs are as popular with the residents as the holiday makers.

Lloret de Mar lies at the heart of the Costa Brava and is one of Spain's trendiest resorts. The beach here consists of coarse, golden sand and shingle and shelves quite steeply into the sea. The beach offers windsurfing and sailing in the summer months. The beautiful seafront promenade is lined with tall palms.

What to do on the Costa Brava

Hot summers and mild winters make the Costa Brava an all-year-round resort and a sport fanatic's paradise. With its wide selection of long, sandy beaches, secluded coves and tiny bays, water sports are top of the agenda. When it comes to boating, most of the larger beaches have something and most hotels that front the beach have access to boats of some kind. Pedalos, two seater, foot-driven vessels are the norm and are quite cheap to hire by the hour. Banana boats are also quite common, seating 10 or 12 people at a time. Water-skiing, although quite common, is becoming expensive and less popular. The clear waters of this coastline offer excellent opportunities for snorkelling especially the tiny coves that are almost impossible to get to. By far the coast's most popular pastime is swimming. In high season the best beaches are crowded but between towns you will find less used beaches that are just as attractive. Most of the beaches are not manned by lifeguards so watch the small children. There are however, many first-aid stations.

Barcelona Guide

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A modern City like Barcleona requqirs a modern Airport with an overall annual capacity for 55 million passengers, Barcelona Airport (BCN) is currently Spain's number two airport, serving more than 30 million. Situated along the Mediterranean coastline, close to the port and within the town of El Prat de Llobregat, the airport is just 10 km / 6 miles south-west of Barcelona city centre. Nearby towns include Castelldefels, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Viladecans.

Flights run daily to a huge number of international destinations and are handled by three very efficient terminals. All of the terminals are situated adjacent to one another and are connected by a walkway. The main airlines currently operating at Barcelona Airport include Clickair, Spanair and Vueling Airlines.

Barcelona has become a destination for Hen and Stag weekends and is also the gateway to such wonderful costas as Costa Brava and Costa Dorada-

Barcelona is one of the nicest cities to visit. Its museums, theatres, art galleries and nightlife are of an impressive high standard. Besides that, this art and design centre has a lot of interesting sights to offer to its visitors.

The best place to watch people go by, to stroll or simply relax, is 'Las Ramblas', a pedestrian street with dozens of outdoor cafes. Here, you’ll find flower-stands, book kiosks and small market stalls where they sell birds and small animals. You’ll also find an endlessly fascinating flowing receptacle of pageant-jugglers, singers, dancers, puppeteers, sidewalk artists, living statues and assorted oddballs on parade. Nearby is 'Plaça Real', with plenty of bars and restaurants, and 'Palau Guell', built by the Catalan architectural genius Antoni Gaudí in his undulating art-nouveau style. While in Las Ramblas and Placa Real, be very aware of pickpockets, too.
After having seen these sights, stroll the narrow winding streets of the 'Barri Gotic', the medieval Gothic quarter full of interesting tapas bars and cafes. Check out Picasso’s old hangout, 'Els Quatre Gats', which has been renovated without losing its bohemian charm. Or head for the old Barceloneta section on the waterfront. This working-class area, which was always slightly rundown and scruffy-looking, is now packed with paella restaurants.

The new beach area, which runs from Barceloneta to the Olympic village, is much cleaner than the old beach area. Although some people believe that it has been cleaned up considerably, it might be a wise idea to stay out of the water. Fortunately, the beach itself is already a feast for the eyes (and ears), with its huge and roaring waves.

Catalans are known for their independent spirit and their sense of humour. Salvador Dali was a Catalan (and unfortunately for Catalans, he was also a Fascist and supporter of General Franco's regime)and his bizarre sense of humour is just one example of the region’s endearing weirdness. Language is a BIG problem for English-speakers in Barcelona and also areas around the city. There are bno signboards in English and if you do not speak Spanish (or preferably Catalan), you are better off with a phrase book to guide you around. Even in Hotels they do not speak English. It comes as a surprise because a large part of the tourists are English and tourism is a big contributer to their economy.

Spring is the best time to visit Barcelona, as you can expect a temperature of round and about 20 degrees Celsius. During summer, it can get very hot and humid (about 30 degrees) and crowded, due to the tourists and cultural events taking place in September. Barcelona will be as expensive as you want it to be. Attention: Barcelona is relatively rich, so prices are much higher than places elsewhere in Spain. Still, restaurants are relatively cheap (at lunch time you can find a two course meal and desert for 7-9€) and for a hotel, three meals and a night out, count on it costing some 145 Euro for two persons.

Barcelona Train Stations:

The two main stations serving Barcelona are Estaciós (stations) Sants and França. Sants services destinations in Spain and a few international trains, while most long distance trains (from Geneva, Milan, Paris and Zurich) depart from Estació França.

Barcelona Bus Stations:

Estació del Nord is the larger of the two. It handles busses to most major Spanish cities as well as hosting international busses run by Eurolines/Linebús and Starbus. Location: Carrer d'Alí Bei near the Arc de Triomf metro station. The Estació d'Autobuses de Sants near the Sants train station handles buses to Montserrat and international services operated by Eurolines/Julià Via.

Kylie getting to know her new family

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Kylie Minogue seemed to be getting on famously with boyfriend Andrés Velencoso Segura's family over the festive period.

After the couple jetted into Spain on Christmas Eve to be with his familly, the pint-size popstar spent quality time with his sisters.

The three ladies have been spending time together during Kylie's stay with the family of her current beau.

Minogue, 41, and the sisters, Sonia and Silvia, were pictured taking a stroll in Tossa del Mar, on the Costa Brava, near Barcelona yesterday.

And they appeared to be getting on well, with seemingly no problems in communication between the potential in-laws.

Welcome to Catalunya Life

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Catalunya Life is a blog about everything to do with Catalunya life from the Wonderful city life of Barcelona to Inland Catalunya and the fantastic contrasting Costas of Costa Brava, Costa Maresme and Costa Dorada.

We will be giving you useful informtaion from Hotels to restaurants and Beaches to culture to help you enjoy Catalunya life to its Maxiumum.

If you would like us to provide specific information about catalunya just let us know and please feel free to contribute to the blog.