El Camino de Santiago
The Road to Santiago, Part 3: Cantabria to Galicia
By Max Milano Dusk on Laredo beach. My feet sink into the wet sand as the last surf pulls back.
September 11, 2025
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El Camino de Santiago
The Road to Santiago. Part 2: La Rioja to Bayonne
A Pilgrim’s Road Trip Along the Camino de Santiago By Max Milano, Travel Writer & Photographer It has been a
August 9, 2025
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El Camino de Santiago
The Road to Santiago. Part 1: Cuenca to Bilbao
A Pilgrim’s Road Trip Along the Camino de Santiago By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) “We’re staying in a
August 6, 2025
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El Camino de Santiago
The Road to Santiago. Prologue: Valencia to Cuenca
A Pilgrim’s Road Trip Along the Camino de Santiago By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) The Med in August
August 1, 2025
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Roman Spain Blogs
Cuenca: Hanging Houses & Roman Ruins
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) I’m standing on a wobbly iron bridge bolted to the cliffs of Cuenca.
July 30, 2025
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Roman Spain Blogs
Roman Sagunto, Spain: The City Hannibal Burnt Where the Paella Still Sizzles
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) I, like most tourists and expats, must’ve driven past Sagunto a hundred times. Always between
July 12, 2025
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The Road to Santiago, Part 3: Cantabria to Galicia
By Max Milano Dusk on Laredo beach. My feet sink into the wet sand as the last surf pulls back. We’ve come a long, hot way from La Rioja, via Vitoria-Gasteiz, skirting Bilbao’s police state cameras and slow-motion speed traps on the freeways and B roads. We’ve been chasing the coast, longing for cooler air. It was an asphalt-melting thirty-five degrees today in Vitoria-Gasteiz. We find relief on the Cantabrian shore. Laredo. A name that…
The Road to Santiago. Part 2: La Rioja to Bayonne
A Pilgrim’s Road Trip Along the Camino de Santiago By Max Milano, Travel Writer & Photographer It has been a long, tough road to get to La Rioja, Spain’s premier wine region, but it’s been worth it. We’ve set our GPS to avoid tolls so we can really see the country. The freeways in Spain are antiseptic and empty, skirting small towns and cities like a gerrymandered political map. We want to see the little…
The Road to Santiago. Part 1: Cuenca to Bilbao
A Pilgrim’s Road Trip Along the Camino de Santiago By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) “We’re staying in a retirement home for old ETA members,” I hear my wife say from the bedroom as I sip a Scotch and Coke Zero on the balcony of the Hotel Arriaga in Bilbao. Below me, a narrow alley funnels the whole of humanity into the maze of Bilbao’s Old Town. I hear Dutch. German. Latin American Spanish.…
The Road to Santiago. Prologue: Valencia to Cuenca
A Pilgrim’s Road Trip Along the Camino de Santiago By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) The Med in August is hot like fish soup. The air hangs heavy. The palms don’t move and the heat rides up from the Sahara with the sirocco. Yellow dust settles at dusk, and it’s 9:30 p.m. before the sun drops, because Spain still runs on Berlin time, a gift from Franco to Hitler that no one’s bothered to…
Cuenca: Hanging Houses & Roman Ruins
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) I’m standing on a wobbly iron bridge bolted to the cliffs of Cuenca. They say it’s built in the Eiffel style, but when you step out onto it, it feels more Indiana Jones than Paris. The metal creaks underfoot. Hundreds of feet below, a river snakes through a canyon so deep you can hear it before you see it. Thick brush hides the water, but nothing hides the…
Roman Sagunto, Spain: The City Hannibal Burnt Where the Paella Still Sizzles
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) I, like most tourists and expats, must’ve driven past Sagunto a hundred times. Always between Valencia and Barcelona. Always in a rush. The AP-7 skirts along the Mediterranean, passing citrus groves, factory outlets, beach towns with nondescript condos, and even a Roman aqueduct. But then there’s that hill, the one crowned by an ancient fortress that seems to grow out of the stone itself. I never stopped. Most tourists don’t.…
The Reluctant Pilgrim: Road-Tripping the Camino de Santiago from Bayonne to Santiago de Compostela
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) We didn’t do the Camino to find ourselves. We did the Camino de Santiago because the Mediterranean summer tried to kill us. We weren’t looking for God, inner peace, or enlightenment. We did it because in July on the Costa Blanca the air stops moving and the Med becomes a hot lake. Fish soup. The sea is so hot and still that even the Roman garum vats that dot the…
Top 10 Best Digital Marketing Tools Spain Expats Need to Succeed
At some point in every expat’s journey through Spain, somewhere between your third bocadillo de jamón and your first encounter with the dreaded Ayuntamiento, you’ll feel it. That itch. The one that whispers, ‘You need to start a business.’ Maybe it’s a beachside café. Maybe a yoga retreat in the hills of Ronda. Maybe you’ve got a software idea you swear will change the world, or at least solve one weird Spanish paperwork problem. Whatever…
For Whom the Horn Honks: An Expat’s Spain Driving Test Calvary
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) The day of the driving test finally came. Months of waiting. Over a thousand euros spent on driving school fees, paperwork, and lessons. He’d already flunked the first written exam. This was the last chance before the whole thing reset. Another fail would mean 300 euros to re-enroll in the school. The written exam stayed valid for two years, but the rest? Gone. Then 50 euros per driving lesson, with…
The Day Fideuà Was Born: A Salty Tale From the Port of Gandia
by Max Milano (Travel Writer). Valencian fishermen leave port before dawn to haul in the day’s catch, so there’s something about being out on a boat under the hot midday sun that makes them tired and hungry. It was out on the warm waters of the Mediterranean, just off the coast of Gandia, sometime in the early 20th century (around the 1930s) that a hungry captain aboard the Santa Isabel waited for his lunch. He…
Practical Tips for Expats: How to Survive the Supermarket Game in Spain (and Maybe Find Love)
Let’s start with a shocking truth: supermarkets in Spain are closed on Sundays. Closed. As in, shut down tighter than a Spanish pharmacy during siesta time. You’ve just stumbled out of bed on Sunday morning (after a big Saturday night), bleary-eyed, craving an orange juice, and boom, nada. No Mercadona. No Carrefour. Then, after wandering aimlessly along the quiet Sunday morning streets, you may or may not stumble upon a shady corner store with a…
How To Sell Your Property in Spain for a Profit (Even If You Don’t Speak Spanish)
When Sarah, a British expat living in Alicante, decided to sell her sunny two-bedroom apartment near the beach, she assumed it would be easy. After all, Spain’s property market seemed hot, and the flat was in great condition, with a spacious balcony and sea views. She uploaded a few photos to a popular property portal, listed the price slightly higher than she had paid a few years ago, and waited for the calls to come…
Why You Absolutely Need A Good Real Estate Lawyer When Buying or Selling Property in Spain
Lawyer Up To Avoid Scams, Squatters, Bureaucracy, and Costly Mistakes when Purchasing Property In Spain As An Expat Buying or selling property in Spain can be one of the most rewarding moves of your life. Whether it is a beachfront villa, an investment apartment in a growing market, or your next full-time residence, the Spanish property market offers exciting opportunities for expats. However, those opportunities come with significant legal and bureaucratic challenges that are often…
Spain Real Estate Buying Process Checklist For Expats
Use This Checklist to Simplify the Complex Spain Real Estate Buying Process The buying process in Spain is different from what many foreign buyers expect. If you want to avoid delays, hidden surprises, and unnecessary stress, it is essential to understand the whole buying process before you start house hunting in Spain. This checklist walks you through every stage of the Spanish property buying journey: From finding the right home to signing at the notary…
Valencian Fallas: Fiesta & Fire
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) Spain and fiestas go hand in hand, like jamón, paella, and sangría in the sun-soaked dreams of travelers the world over. Hemingway started that dream. His first novel, Fiesta (published as The Sun Also Rises in the U.S.), burned the image into the world’s mind: bulls thundering through narrow alleys, chasing drunk Americans as they slipped and stumbled over Pamplona’s cobblestones. But fiestas in Spain aren’t made for…
Beach, Bureaucracy & Broken Dreams: The Spain Real Estate Survival Guide
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) There is a reason why so many bright-eyed expats arrive in Spain full of hope and sunshine, only to end up neck-deep in housing disasters, unread WhatsApp messages, and real estate contracts that look like they were written during the Inquisition. One minute, you’re sipping cañas and daydreaming about tile work. Next, you’re begging a landlord in Valencia to explain why he wants 12 months of rent in cash and…
Spain Roadtrip: Zaragoza to Teruel On The Mudéjar Highway
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) The day begins with dust, dry air, and a sun sharp as glass, even this early. Aragon opens on the road before us. We’re in high desert country. Red and ancient. Carved by history and silence. Orwell called it beautiful in the snow, even with machine guns on the hills. Today, it’s just hot. Aragon is an arid, high inland desert that extends from the snow-capped Pyrenees Mountains…
Welcome to Benidorm: Purgatory or Misunderstood Paradise?
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) It begins, as these stories often do, with a pint of lager at 9 in the morning. We’re deep in the heart of the British zone, inside a place called “The Queen Vic,” and the man beside us has just announced that he’s on his third pint of the day and still hasn´t had breakfast. His skin is redder than a bullfighter’s cape, and he swears that the…
Tarragona Roman Spain: Have You Been Thinking Of The Roman Empire?
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) It’s late at night, and darkness engulfs us as I drive southbound on Highway AP-7 between Barcelona and Tarragona. I am thinking of the Roman Empire because Highway AP-7 follows the ancient Roman road, the Via Augusta, which once linked Cadiz with Rome. Traffic is light, but mosquitoes swarm the car, challenging visibility. Our windshield wiper fluid is exhausted, leaving smeared bugs obstructing the view. Every few kilometers,…
Roman Valencia: Romans Underground
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) In the quiet suburb of Lliria, just outside Valencia, Spain, I find myself standing beneath an apartment building, where a grand subterranean space was once meant to be a parking lot for the luxury apartments above. But a builder’s shovel struck more than just rock; it hit a Roman tombstone. The city’s swift intervention preserved the site, at the cost of the building losing its underground parking. This is a…
Are You Team Paella or Fideuà? Meet Paella’s Noodly Sister
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) When one thinks of Spain, the image of a steaming paella often dances through our collective minds. It’s practically a culinary postcard from España. But hold onto your forks! Upon touching down in Valencia, some of you might be shocked to discover that what we’ve been calling Paella all this time is actually called “Arroz a la Marinera”, which is a delightful mix of rice, saffron, and seafood.…
Cartagena Roman Spain: Carthage vs Rome
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) I’m deep inside the ruins of the Roman Forum in Cartagena, Spain. This was New Carthage (Carthago Nova). The sight of 2000-year-old amphorae, mosaics, and Corinthian columns is mind-blowing. Ancient lewd graffiti on the walls reflect the phallocratic obsessions of the average classical Roman. Two stories above us, in the modern city, a Spanish waiter yells at someone in an even more lewd tone, invoking the same phalluses…
L’Albufera: Birthplace of Valencian Paella
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) A green sea of rice sways in the wind, stretching as far as my eyes can see. It’s a magic carpet of green waves shimmering under the bright Valencian sun. Just weeks ago, this was all water – a vast lagoon, an inland sea divided by dirt roads extending for miles. But today, all you see are green waves with golden flashes as the rice stalks dance in the breeze,…
Alicante: A Day Trip To Tabarca Island
From the Road to Damascus to an island paradise in the Mediterranean, because even Saints need to relax once in a while. Welcome to Tabarca Island (once known as Saint Paul’s Island, as it was rumored that St. Paul stopped there on his travails), the perfect antidote to the hustle and bustle of Alicante and Benidorm.
Villajoyosa: A Jewel On the Costa Blanca
By Max Milano (Travel Writer and Photographer) Roadtripping in Spain is always a journey of discovery. You might stumble upon the ruins of a Roman domus, almost forgotten by the roadside, or a string of 1,000-year-old Moorish castles on hills above the freeway. Spain is a country where Roman aqueducts dot the countryside, some just a few miles from seaside tourist hotspots where pale British visitors sip even paler beer and feast on English breakfasts…
After The Floods: We’re All Valencians Now
By Max Milano November 2024. I’m standing on the beach, but the beach is gone. Instead of miles of white sand and clear blue Mediterranean waters, there are now massive piles of debris stretching along the coast, fading into the horizon. The debris is stacked high in mounds, separated by lower stretches of rubble. It looks like the city bulldozers, usually here at dawn to smooth the sand, came early to build a grim mountain…