Fabled Shore: From the Pyrenées to Portugal (Oxford Paperbacks)

Rose Macaulay traveled down the Catalonian, Valencian, Andalusian, and Algrave coast in the 1940s, just after the Spanish Civil War, when the roads were still pitted with shell holes and the victors were rebuilding their war-torn churches. Fabled Shore, her fascinating account of this trip, has become one of the classics in travel writing. Steeped in Spanish history, and filled with stories of her meetings with children, fishermen, and the still-active anti-Francoists, it describes the coast of Spain before the tourists of sun-starved Northern Europe invaded, turning it into a commercial center. Benidorm was then a fishing village frequented by smugglers; Torremolinos, a small town boasting but a single hotel. Versed Spanish history and architecture, Macaulay (who attracted enormous attention, traveling as an unaccompanied woman in a car) has left a marvelous picture of Spain as it was and, in some ways, still is. "Rewarding for those who know and love Spain or for those who hope to do so someday."--Christian Science Monitor ·"A book of extraordinary charm."--The Nation About the Author: The late Rose Macaulay was a well-known novelist and travel writer. They Were Defeated, another of her books, was recently reissued by Oxford University Press. Raymond Carr, also a well-known travel writer, is Warden of St. Anthony's College, Oxford. One of the classics of travel writing, describing the untraveled coast of Spain just after the Civil War