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Andalucia: A Portrait of Southern Spain
256 pages, Hardcover
Published April 26, 1984
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About the author
Nicholas Luard
25 books5 followersNicholas Lamert Luard was a writer and politician.
He was educated at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was taught by F.R. Leavis. He met Peter Cook through Footlights. A very short academic career was replaced by club management on the strength of a legacy. He co-founded The Establishment in the early 1960s with Peter Cook.
He then went into writing. He was one of the Lords Gnome of Private Eye.
With Chris Brasher, Nigel Hawkins and Denis Mollison, he founded the John Muir Trust in 1983. Nick served as Chairman from 1991 to 1997.
Luard stood as a candidate for the Referendum Party in the 1997 general election, against Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate.
Luard married Elisabeth Longmore, the food writer, in 1962.
He was educated at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was taught by F.R. Leavis. He met Peter Cook through Footlights. A very short academic career was replaced by club management on the strength of a legacy. He co-founded The Establishment in the early 1960s with Peter Cook.
He then went into writing. He was one of the Lords Gnome of Private Eye.
With Chris Brasher, Nigel Hawkins and Denis Mollison, he founded the John Muir Trust in 1983. Nick served as Chairman from 1991 to 1997.
Luard stood as a candidate for the Referendum Party in the 1997 general election, against Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate.
Luard married Elisabeth Longmore, the food writer, in 1962.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 24, 2025
“Lemon blossom and olive trees, whitewashed villages in ochre hills”
“The brilliance of the Spring Fair in Seville. The Moorish beauty of the Alhambra or the timeless elegance of the great mosque at Córdoba.”
I’d be very hard-pressed to find a more eloquent summary of Nicholas Luard’s brilliant portrait of short period he spent living with his family in a valley close to Tarifa, a fishing port on the Mediterranean coast, than the back cover marketing blurb:
“… a vivid record of his journeys through southern Spain … Nicholas describes all the great cities, meets with bullfighters, sherry growers, noblemen and gypsies, and reports on the delights of Andaluz food and wine.”
Just one extended sample paragraph to whet your whistle:
“When I first saw the Andalucian landscape along the straits of Gibraltar on that bright summer morning in 1963 with caravans of eagles migrating overhead and dolphins leaping in the sea below, the Guadalmesi valley was an almost untouched scoop of green cork forest in the hilly shoreline. The coastal road that crossed it was narrow, cratered with potholes, and largely deserted apart from the occasional mule-train or an ancient grinding fish truck which left a snail's track of slime and melting ice in its wake. At one end of the sea-lane Algeciras with its neighbour across, the bay, the sleeping British lion of Gibraltar, selling reliable kippers and echoing to the sound of military bugle calls. At the other the walled town of Tarifa, 'most loyal and most noble', was a little lost enclave, half Moorish and half Andaluz, where the older women wore Arab veils, [and] the windy streets smelled of coriander and sea-salt ..."
This gorgeous, mellifluous, and poetic description of one of the most gorgeous chunks of the world that I’ve ever had the pleasure to visit is a must read for armchair travelers, real travelers, lovers of history and geography, students of the Spanish language and culture, and, perhaps most particularly, any wannabe expats considering a full- or part-time retirement home in the sunny hills of Spanish Andalucía.
Paul Weiss
“The brilliance of the Spring Fair in Seville. The Moorish beauty of the Alhambra or the timeless elegance of the great mosque at Córdoba.”
I’d be very hard-pressed to find a more eloquent summary of Nicholas Luard’s brilliant portrait of short period he spent living with his family in a valley close to Tarifa, a fishing port on the Mediterranean coast, than the back cover marketing blurb:
“… a vivid record of his journeys through southern Spain … Nicholas describes all the great cities, meets with bullfighters, sherry growers, noblemen and gypsies, and reports on the delights of Andaluz food and wine.”
Just one extended sample paragraph to whet your whistle:
“When I first saw the Andalucian landscape along the straits of Gibraltar on that bright summer morning in 1963 with caravans of eagles migrating overhead and dolphins leaping in the sea below, the Guadalmesi valley was an almost untouched scoop of green cork forest in the hilly shoreline. The coastal road that crossed it was narrow, cratered with potholes, and largely deserted apart from the occasional mule-train or an ancient grinding fish truck which left a snail's track of slime and melting ice in its wake. At one end of the sea-lane Algeciras with its neighbour across, the bay, the sleeping British lion of Gibraltar, selling reliable kippers and echoing to the sound of military bugle calls. At the other the walled town of Tarifa, 'most loyal and most noble', was a little lost enclave, half Moorish and half Andaluz, where the older women wore Arab veils, [and] the windy streets smelled of coriander and sea-salt ..."
This gorgeous, mellifluous, and poetic description of one of the most gorgeous chunks of the world that I’ve ever had the pleasure to visit is a must read for armchair travelers, real travelers, lovers of history and geography, students of the Spanish language and culture, and, perhaps most particularly, any wannabe expats considering a full- or part-time retirement home in the sunny hills of Spanish Andalucía.
Paul Weiss
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