Tours by Tony in Spain

06/04/2025

https://toursbytony.es/

Hi! I'm Anthony! I'm a professional guide and I specialize in Tours in Toledo, the city of the Three Cultures!

03/04/2025

🏰 castles in Spain.

El histórico Castillo de Almonacid de Toledo ha sufrido el derrumbe parcial de una de las torres, provocado por el paso del tiempo y las condiciones meteorológicas recientes.

02/04/2025

Down by the "Rivero's"

28/03/2025

Este 2025 se cumplen 120 años de la publicación de «Vida de don Quijote y Sancho», de Miguel de Unamuno:

«El pobre e ingenioso hidalgo no buscó provecho pasajero ni regalo de cuerpo, sino eterno nombre y fama, poniendo así su nombre sobre sí mismo. […] Perdió Alonso Quijano el juicio, para ganarlo en Don Quijote: un juicio glorificado».

25/03/2025

If Spain had a national season, I think it would be spring. And if spring had a birthplace, it would be Sevilla. Every year, just after its elaborate Holy Week celebrations, this town of gazpacho, flamenco, and fragrant orange trees dolls up its fairgrounds with over a thousand pinstriped party tents — called “casetas” — for a week of round-the-clock revelry: the “Feria de Abril” (April Fair).

Strolling through this secular festival feels like crashing a thousand wedding receptions all at once. Inside each caseta, families, clubs, and associations host private parties. Sherry spritzes flow freely as revelers spill out onto the fairgrounds, where a springtime flirtatiousness fills the air. Women twirl in polka-dot flamenco dresses, their fans all aflutter, as men in tight spangled jackets tip their wide-brimmed hats. Even the horses prance.

I love attending the April Fair, where you don't need an invitation to join the fun. Colorful parades and lively music flood the fairgrounds into the wee hours — and even though the casetas are technically private, they make a habit of pulling in strangers. Every time I'm in town for the April Fair, I find myself swept into a caseta, handed a sherry spritz…and next thing I know, I'm on the dance floor, twining with a stranger while picking up a few basic flamenco steps. Olé!

That's just one corner of Spain. Wherever you go, you'll find opportunities to be part of the fun: sardana circle dances in Barcelona (post-Mass Sunday celebrations of Catalan culture); evening paseos through the bustling streets of Madrid; and everywhere, lively taberna debates over which tapas you should try, which fútbol team you should support, and which town you should visit next. Women flaunt their fans, fluent in that language of love. Short men respond with raspy to***co voices, swinging big bellies — which they call “curvas de la felicidad” (curves of happiness) — as if evangelical about the beauty of the good times they've enjoyed with abandon.

If this much Spanish fun sounds like a challenge you'd like to tackle, we'd love to take you there on any of our five Spain itineraries. Best of Andalucía in 10 Days, Basque Country of Spain & France in 9 Days, and Best of Barcelona & Madrid in 8 Days dive deep into Spain's vibrant cities and culture-packed regions. Want it all? Consider our Best of Spain in 14 Days or its unguided sibling, My Way Spain in 11 Days. They both cover the best of Spain, from lively Barcelona to soulful Sevilla.

In the March edition of Tour News, we're celebrating the joys of traveling in Spain with slideshows covering a trio of our culture-packed Spain itineraries, a few raves from recent Spain tour members, an interview with longtime Spain guide Augustín Ciriza, and a swirling tour through April Fair in Sevilla. It’s all available right here: www.ricksteves.com/tours/tour-news

Imagine a Spanish adventure filled with flamenco, flowing with sherry, and rollicking with curves of happiness. Then, consider making it happen!

23/03/2025

They quit the United States for Spain in 2022, and Laura Hamlin and her husband Allan Amer describe the experience as like leaving a “bad relationship.”

According to Laura, originally from New York, they struggled to feel at home after moving from New Jersey to Florida in 2012, and the “divisive” political environment was wearing her down.

“I was waiting for America to feel like it used to feel,” Laura, who previously worked in real estate, tells CNN Travel, adding that it felt like “leaving a relationship that you knew was a bad one.”

“You want what you had in the beginning. And it’s just not there.”

How the couple landed in Spain: https://cnn.it/4hvDABE

22/03/2025

Hay varias teorías acerca de qué representa la escultura íbera conocida como la "Dama de Elche" de lo que no se duda es de que la mayoría de las joyas y amuletos de la ilustre dama ilicitana son de origen fenicio.A su lado una pequeña reconstrucción.

10/03/2025

🚅

Se trata de un medio de transporte sostenible similar al tren que superaría los 1200 kilómetros por hora y sustituiría muchas veces al avión.

22/02/2025

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22/02/2025

20/02/2025

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain’s museum of 20th-century art, has expanded its collection with 470 new works in a demonstration of its commitment to gender balance and racial diversity. More than half of the acquisitions are by women and a significant proportion by artists from under-represented ethnic backgrounds. Many are by promising young artists whose works are yet to enter art history books.

Around 100 of the works were bought by the museum over the course of last year, with Spain’s culture ministry providing almost 140 pieces, and nearly 160 donated by galleries, artists and collectors. The Reina Sofía Museum Foundation, which aims to promote cultural partnerships and public participation in the museum’s work, provided a further 80 works, most of them donations. The acquisitions amount to a total investment of almost €8m.

The new intake comes ahead of the planned inauguration of an updated permanent display in March 2026 illustrating the history of art from the late 1970s to the present day. “We are preparing new narratives,” Manuel Segade, the museum’s director, tells The Art Newspaper. “This requires new art histories to be told in different ways, so it was the perfect moment to include a lot of younger artists and less common figures.”

Read more: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/02/17/madrid-reina-sofia-museum-acquisitions-diversify-collection

18/02/2025

Notre Dame burned and was repaired. These things happen everywhere throughout history.

Hoy hace 61 años que se hundió una de las esquinas de la mezquita del Cristo de la Luz debido a las humedades del subsuelo. Ocurrió el 18 de febrero de 1964 y por suerte fue rápidamente reparada. Foto Flores.