A travel and lifestyle blog about Arizona, Spain, and everywhere in between.
4 Reasons You Should Know About Linares, Spain
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
Browse through the pages of any major travel guide for Spain and you’d be hard-pressed to find even a single reference to Linares, a city 61,000 strong in the southern province of Jaén. More people live in Linares than in the tourist hotspots of Segovia and Ávila, yet hardly anyone has heard about this place. This is a real shame, because Linares is a decent-sized, typical Spanish town but without the hordes of tourists that mob Granada or Sevilla. Although a fairly anonymous, workaday town, Linares makes up for its lack of cathedrals or castles with a significant cultural heritage and an accessible setting. Find out why Linares should have its name on your map after the photo!
If you’re like me, you probably don’t know a thing (or care) about the history of Spanish bullfighting, but apparently The Most Famous Bullfighter of All Time was Manuel Laureano Rodríguez Sánchez, a.k.a. Manolete. He died from wounds sustained in his last bullfight here in Linares on August 28, 1947. Manolete was one of the most important bullfighters who fought (played? worked?) in the post-Spanish-Civil-War era, and after he died at just 30 years of age, the city erected a monument to him outside their quite large, white-and-gold painted bullring.
Andrés Segovia was the man who probably single-handedly dignified the guitar as an instrument worthy of classical music concerts, who transcribed a ton of classical music for the guitar, and who taught many of today’s contemporary guitarists. Although he was born in Linares in 1893, he grew up in the nearby village of Villacarrillo and later moved to Granada, where he seriously began studying the guitar. He returned to visit Linares for the first time in the 1950s, having lived in Madrid for most of his professional life. Segovia died in 1987, and today, an international classical guitar competition is held every year in town.
Although Spanish provinces like Granada and León are famous for serving with your drink free tapas—small plates of food like sausage and fried potatoes or salmon rolls on slices of bread—the province of Jaén is Spain’s best-kept secret when it comes to the free tapas scene. In most bar/restaurants you go to, you can even choose which free tapa you get, and rarely will your bill be more than 2€. I know, it’s a steal!
Additionally, the town has a healthy appreciation for flamenco, a style of music that involves ornate, Arabic-sounding singing, guitar playing, hand clapping, and passionate dancing. This uniquely Spanish genre began centuries ago in the region of Andalucía, based on the musical traditions of Gypsy people who form a large part of the population in the south. My friend Alissa lived and worked in Linares this past year and once invited me to a flamenco performance that was completely free yet totally authentic. A little under a hundred locals (and us) crammed into a converted garage that hosted the flamenco club, enjoying fresh food and drink and a powerful expression of emotion.
4) Train station was once Andalucía’s only gateway to the rest of Spain
Here’s a fun fact: up until the arrival of the AVE high-speed rail linking Madrid with Córdoba and Sevilla in the early 1990s, virtually all rail traffic in and out of the entire Andalucía region had to navigate through the Pass of Despeñaperros and the Linares-Baeza train station. The station was so important that it has its own town—literally; Estación Linares-Baeza is also the name of the tiny village outside Linares that developed around the rail traffic. Today, the station isn’t quite as busy as it once was decades ago, but all non-high speed and freight traffic still rolls on by on its way to Madrid, Barcelona, and beyond.
Have you ever heard of Linares before? What other important cities can you think of that are completely overlooked by travel guides? Tell me in the comments below!
Galicia, located in Spain’s northwestern corner, is one of the country’s greatest regions. When I lived there from 2013 to 2015, I couldn’t get enough of the glorious, fresh food , the green, lush countryside, and the grand, granite architecture . But I could only take canned sardines with me back home, we’ve got enough humidity here in Texas, and sadly the oldest buildings in suburban Plano date back not to the 1070s but the 1970s. View this post on Instagram Okay, but really, y'all, where are the fairies??? This place has got some serious magic about it... // #flowers #spring #park #santiago #santiagodecompostela #galicia #spain #vsco #vscocam A post shared by Trevor Huxham (@trevorhuxham) on Mar 13, 2014 at 1:29pm PDT But what has stuck with me the most has been galego , the Galician language that I quickly picked up on after being immersed in it from day one at the elementary school I worked at. Clo
As you head down a curve of the busy San Pedro street, you catch your first view of the twin bell towers of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela—and you catch your breath. Petite hatchbacks rattle across the cobblestone as your feet seem drawn farther down the path, although that might just be gravity pulling you downhill toward the old zone. You cinch up your backpack’s sternum strap for the final approach of this multiple-night pilgrimage. For not the first time on your Camino, you lose your sense of direction as you enter Santiago’s old town: granite flagstones at your feet, stone-and-graying-plaster houses on either side, and overcast skies above disorient you—yet your eyes eventually lock on to a spray-painted yellow arrow on the side of a building. Once you’re back on autopilot, you start to reflect on why you started this crazy, 70-mile-plus hike in the first place. Rúa de San Pedro, Santiago de Compostela Maybe you hiked from Sarria farther inland as a cheap and hea
After Paris and the Bayeux Tapestry , the third thing I wanted to see while traveling in France was Mont-Saint-Michel , a towering monastery built on top of a mountainous island off the coast of Normandy. Before visiting, I really didn’t know much at all about the Mount except that it was only accessible when the tides were out…and that it looked just plain cool. During the visit, I ended up learning a bit about French history and why the Mount is such a big deal for the French people. Mont-Saint-Michel It was by sheer luck, though, that I was able to visit Mont-Saint-Michel at all (pronounced “mohn san mee-shehl” [mɔ̃ sɛ̃ mi.ʃɛl]). The very day I had chosen to visit Mont-Saint-Michel was the first day in weeks that the tourist bus was running between Saint-Malo (where my hostel was) and the Mount, with maybe one or two other runs more for December. I paid 20€ for the round-trip service but didn’t complain because this really freaky coincidence made the whole visit possible.
