Kimberley Mannion
BRITISH couple Calum Chace and Julia Begbie have penned a glossy book on Andalucia encapsulating their love for the region.
Hailing from Sussex, the couple bought their Spanish home in the Sierra de Ronda in 2016 and have fallen in love with all Andalucia has to offer.
Although it was not their first visit to Andalucia, it was Calum’s trip to Sevilla for a conference in 2015 which sparked the mission to buy a home in the region.
When their son was heading off to visit family abroad, they wanted to send a nice illustrated book on the region portraying all its beauty. The couple found the idea they had in their head did not exist at a reasonable price, and so decided to write the book themselves.
It became a labour of love, with the final product not an all encompassing travel guide nor a piece of literary travel writing, but the ideal coffee table book featuring stunning images alongside light hearted commentary of their Spanish adventures.
Calum is an experienced writer who has published several books, in the very different field, however, of Artificial Intelligence.
The couple also author a blog to encourage guests who visit their Spanish property, which they rent out on Airbnb, to explore the area more widely and wander off the beaten track, a project which “turned into a great prompt for our own explorations, because of course we had to go and see places more than once in order to write about them”, Calum tells the Olive Press.
On the process of writing Exploring Andalusia, the couple said: “As is the way of these things, it was much more work than we expected, but very rewarding. It has deepened our respect and love for the area.”
The roughly 300 page book begins by taking readers on a journey through each of the main Andalucian cities, before moving on to the white villages, traditions like feria and bull runs and then onto a look at the Andalucian countryside.
Exploring Andalusia retails at €20 and is available in bookshops across Andalucia including Luces bookshop and Museo Carmen Thyssen in Malaga, Bookworld Banus in Puerto Banus and Libreria Europa in Nerja. It is also available on Amazon HERE.
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