Residents welcome removal of number 116 route, often used to get to Park Güell

While some places will go to any lengths to attract visitors, residents of La Salut neighbourhood in Barcelona are celebrating a move to wipe themselves off the map.

For years, residents had complained that they could not get home because the number 116 bus is always crammed with tourists visiting Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell. The park is the city’s second most popular attraction after the Sagrada Familia basilica.

Continue reading...

Heavy rain forecast in Saudi Arabia and UAE as weather in France and Spain cools down after weekend of high temperatures

Intense thunderstorms are forecast across parts of the Gulf on Monday and Tuesday, bringing very high rainfall totals to the region and a significant flooding risk in parts.

Low pressure over the Arabian peninsula will deepen on Monday while a flow of moist tropical air moves into the region, significantly enhancing the production of showers as a result.

Continue reading...

As a recent BBC series confirms, the idea of a spiritual journey has survived the decline of organised religion

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s England, the arrival of spring was taken by many as a cue to take to the road. As the prologue to The Canterbury Tales begins: “When in April the sweet showers fall/And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all/…Then people long to go on pilgrimages”.

Given Britain’s increasingly damp climate, contemporary pilgrims are as likely to encounter persistent rain as the occasional sweet shower. But the participants in the BBC’s sixth Pilgrimage series, which ended on Friday, were largely blessed with fine days as they travelled by foot and bus across North Wales. Travelling the Pilgrim’s Way, the group of minor celebrities followed a Christianity-based route-map of shrines and churches, but also stayed at an eco retreat and a Buddhist meditation centre.

Continue reading...

In Fisterra in north-west Spain, a diet rich in seafood, fruit and vegetables survives, and has been found to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart-related conditions

Seagulls shriek, boats bob and the morning sun silvers the waters off the Coast of Death as two sailors take a break from winding up their conger eel lines to ponder the sudden interest in precisely what, and how, people here have eaten for centuries.

Like many in the small Galician fishing town of Fisterra – whose name is derived from the Latin for land’s end, because the lonely peninsula on which it sits is about as far west as you can go in mainland Spain – Sito Mendoza and Ramón Álvarez are a little puzzled by all the fuss over the Atlantic diet.

Continue reading...

José Andrés sends cooks into disaster zones. He has led a backlash over Gaza against Netanyahu that no protest or politician could have matched

José Andrés is perhaps the most influential Spaniard in the world right now. After the Israeli drone strike that killed seven people who worked for his non-profit World Central Kitchen (WCK) in Gaza earlier this month, Andrés’s criticism of Israel has carried more weight and garnered more attention than any statement from a Spanish or other European political figure could.

It may seem strange that a chef raised in a former mining town in northern Spain who moved to New York as a 21-year-old with little money appears to wield such clout. But Andrés is no ordinary celebrity chef.

María Ramírez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain

Continue reading...

Gibraltar’s chief minister says progress made in talks about free movement across border with Spain

The UK and the EU are within “kissing distance” of a post-Brexit deal to guarantee free movement over the border between Gibraltar and Spain, Gibraltar’s chief minister has said.

After a meeting between the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, and the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič, agreement was reached on issues that have dogged negotiations for the past five years.

Continue reading...

Pedro Sánchez is first foreign premier Simon Harris will meet since becoming leader

The new Irish taoiseach is to meet the Spanish prime minister to discuss their joint plan to recognise Palestine as a nation state and their attempts to force the EU to assess Israel’s human rights obligations as a condition of their trade deal with the bloc.

Pedro Sánchez, who is due to arrive in Dublin on Friday, is the first foreign premier Simon Harris will meet since his promotion to the office of the taoiseach this week.

Continue reading...

Each time Madrid and Dublin speak out on the war in Gaza others are emboldened to join them, sources say

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that the Israeli military’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza on Monday night was “a tragic incident” did precious little to allay the fears of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. Nor did his assertion that “this happens in wartime”.

Sánchez, who has been one of the most outspoken and persistent European critics of the way in which Israel has prosecuted its war in Gaza after the terrorist atrocities of 7 October, described the Israeli prime minister’s “supposed explanations” as “totally unacceptable and insufficient”. He added that Spain was waiting for a full and detailed account of the killings before deciding “what action we’ll take with regard to the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu”.

Continue reading...

• Cheikh Sarr of Rayo Majadahonda given two-match ban
• Goalkeeper was sent off after going into crowd to confront fan

Spanish football’s commitment to combatting racism has come under fire after its football federation handed a two-match ban to a goalkeeper who went into the stands to confront a man who had allegedly racially abused him.

The accusations of racism – the latest to rock Spanish football in recent weeks – were launched on Saturday as Rayo Majadahonda took on Sestao River Club in a third-tier match in northern Spain. As the match ticked into its final moments, the Rayo Majadahonda goalkeeper Cheikh Sarr, who was born in Senegal, said he heard racial slurs being hurled at him.

Continue reading...