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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]