Haunted by a cloudless sky

There are no other countries like Spain,” says Robert Jordan in Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bells Toll.

-  NAVTE] SARNA

The same belief propelled Hemingway’s four-decade-long love affair with the land that inspired his best work, including several novels and some of his finest short fiction. In return, he left his own indelible stamp on Spain’s global perception, creating unforgettable images of a country steeped in passion and romance, and of a people who lived and loved hard, and often died without compromise.

Apart from writing up the bull fights of Pamplona and trout fishing in the Pyrenees, he also left a boozy trail in the squares and winding lanes of old Madrid. He immortalised the restaurant Botin, by calling it “one of the best restaurants in the world” in his first novel The Sun Also Rises. Reservations are difficult to get in this oldworld place known best for its roast suckling pig and milk-fed lamb but the crowds keep on coming; in fact a neighbouring restaurant vented its frustration by advertising, “Hemingway did not eat here”.