City Love Companions

Everyone heard about Mallorca, whether they wanted to or not. The hit song by Loft from the 90s has been covered and remixed more times that I could count. I remember those years, that island felt as unreachable as the moon, reserved only for the rich and famous. Palma de Mallorca was somewhere in the background. Most people didn’t even know it’s the capital; people didn’t even bother leaving their hotel enclosures. Even my friends, relatively young people, went to Mallorca for a week and didn’t even bother checking out the capital. Why would they? They had sandy beaches as far as the eye could see, drinks and the Mediterranean just outside of their lodging. The locals are rather annoyed by the tourists, sarcastically saying that Palma de Mallorca became a district of Berlin and th...

Marbella is famous for being a playground for the rich at the Spanish Costa del Sol in the Andalusia region. Crowded with B-class movie actors and “the new rich” Marbella is not much more than a resort, a pretty face with nothing between the ears. That’s okay; some people like to spend their time away from home, sunbathing on a beach while sipping on a Piña colada, or playing golf, or clubbing during warm Mediterranean nights. La Milla de Oro (The Golden Mile) is the focal promenade of the area. The best clubs, boutiques, restaurants and out-of-this-world villas are located on that strip reaching west to Puerto Banús where the real money is docked at a yacht marina. That’s pretty much it: yachts and villas, cocaine and caviar. [caption id="attachment_8807" align="alignleft" wi...

Madrid stands for everything a modern European capital should be about: a rich cultural core with an entertaining nightlife outlining. It was built in 854, as one of many Muslim outposts that were supposed to protect the Iberian Peninsula from the Christian re-conquest. It was called Magerit back then, derived from majira, which means “water source” in Arabic. During the early 14th century Madrid began to attract the wealthy and powerful of Spain, because of its localization in the centre of the peninsula, but it was a pretty grim sight back then. People heard that the royal family was slowly settling there, so they followed the money, just to arrive to a huge mess. A hundred years later, Madrid started looking like a proper city, but only from a distance, towers and walls were built f...

Three kinds of people visit Barcelona: architecture geeks, football fans and LSD enthusiasts. Barcelona is slightly smaller than Madrid and one of the most vibrant harbours on the Mediterranean. The capital of Catalonia is a city of artists and procrastinators. Everything takes years to finish, everyone is always late and slightly pissed off. The Gothic Quarter (Barri Gòtic in Catalan) is the pulsing heartbeat of Barcelona: small, claustrophobic alleys and a huge cathedral. The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia (Catalan: Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia) took three centuries to build, but it was clearly worth the effort. There’s even a Well of Geese in its courtyard; those feathered little beasts caused many tourists an injury. Getting pecked by poultry isn’t eve...