By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) Every April, a certain kind of expat arrives in Valencia, sun-kissed and looking for the shore, but I am not talking about the humans who fill the cafés in Benidorm with their flamingo-like sunburns and lager, I am talking about the real flamingos that come back to the Albufera lagoon south of Valencia and farther down to the salt lakes of Santa Pola. They arrive from Africa, from […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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, […]

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.

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 […]