Spain is a well-oiled tourism machine. In addition to the coastal resorts that established themselves in the ‘60s and ‘70s and any number of tomato-pelting, bull-running festivals made famous by Hemingway and the like, Spanish tourism nowadays seeks to cater to the visitor on the lookout for culture, for history, [...]

Seville is not a cheap city. On the other hand, it is the epicentre of tapa culture and cuisine. The tapas here aren’t free, as they are in Granada for example, but they are good — maybe the best that Spain has to offer. And it isn’t as if there [...]

He shrugged at me. “It’s Berber silver, sir.” “It isn’t though is it? Because it isn’t Berber, and it isn’t silver. Therefore, not Berber silver. Anyway, you didn’t mention the Berber bit when you sold it to me. I think the word you used at the time was ‘Sterling.’ I [...]

By Robin Graham In the year 711, Tariq Ibn Ziyad — a Berber general — landed near the southern tip of Spain with 7,000 men, at the burning edge of the wildfire that was the Arab Empire — the House of Islam. In just a few years they were to [...]

By Robin Graham I bet Washington Irving didn’t have to put up with any of this. Getting a ticket to visit that great treasure of Islamic art and culture, the Alhambra — made famous by Irving himself, among others — is no easy task. It isn’t that it’s hard to [...]

Egyptian cuisine is produced from the melting pot of the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean. It is varied and fascinating, but if you only have one day in Cairo, you can cover the basics. Here’s how. By Robin Graham Breakfast Felfela has been a fixture on the travel [...]