* * * * *
Ernest Hemingway’s Spain
Premio Nacional de Gastronómía
(Spanish National Gastronomy Award) Thursday, July 17 - Monday, July 28, 2025
$5,995 per person; $6,995 single supplement
(without airfare)
Ernest Hemingway’s Spain
A Customized Adventure Designed, Organized & Led
by Spanish Gastronomy, Wine & Culture Expert / Ernest Hemingway Aficionado and Writer-Photographer Gerry Dawes,
Premio Nacional de Gastronómía
(Spanish National Gastronomy Award)
Speaker, The Hemingway Society Conference, San Sebastián 2024
* * * * *
Thursday, July 17 - Monday, July 28, 2025
$5,995 per person; $6,995 single supplementContact Gerry Dawes at gerrydawes@aol.com for Terms and Conditions for the trip.
My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine
enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless
crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce
Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's
culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel
Peace Prize Nominee.
A window commemorating
Ernest Hemingway at Casa Sobrino de Botín, an EH favorite in Madrid which figured prominently in the
final pages of The Sun Also Rises.
Day 00 Thursday, July 17, Flights from city of origin to Málaga
Each traveler arranged their flight schedule to arrive in Málaga by early afternoon on Friday.
Day 01 Friday, July 18 Málaga
We will rendezvous at our centrally located Málaga Palacio hotel and, for those who arrive in time, have a casual tapas luncheon in the old quarter of Málaga, then stroll around the old quarter.
View of Málaga harbor from the Hotel Málaga Palacio.
In the evening, we will have drinks at the Gran Hotel Miramar, where EH, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor and others stayed. The Dangerous Summer p. 167 has descriptions of the people at the Marimar after a Málaga bullfight.
Dinner will be at a seaside restaurant that Ernest Hemingway knew when he visited Málaga to see bullfights and stayed with his friend Bill Davies at Finca La Consula in nearby Churriana.
Hotel Málaga Palacio.
Hotel Málaga Palacio.
Day 02 Saturday, July 19 Málaga - Ronda
In the morning, we will see some more of the old quarter, the Picasso Museum and the home where Picasso was born, the bullfight museum in the Málaga bullring, visit some other notable sites in the city, then have lunch in one of Málaga’s great seaside chiringuitos, like the ones that Hemingway would have frequented in Málaga for Mediterranean fish dishes such as the famous sardinas de espeto, fresh sardines skewered on cane or metal spits and roasted over live coals.
Sardinas de espeto, fresh sardines skewered on cane or metal spits and roasted over live coals.
After lunch, we will stop outside Málaga to visit Finca La Consula, the magnificent country home of Hemingway’s great friend Bill Davies, where Hemingway stayed during the bullfights in Málaga and shot cigarettes from Matador Antonio Ordoñez’s mouth. La Consula has now been renovated and turned into the Escuela de Hostelería de Málaga, a hotel and restaurant school.
La Consula, Hemingway's friend Bill Davis's home a few kilometers outside Málaga. (Photo courtesy of laconsula.com)
After visiting la Consula, we will drive through rugged mountains to Ronda, a former bandolero (bandit-and-smuggler), the hometown of Antonio Ordoñez and a mountain town much frequented by Hemingway. Ronda has statues of Antonio Ordoñez and his father Cayetano, who fought bulls under the name Niño de la Palma and was the prototype for Pedro Romero in The Sun Also Rises and a central character in Death of Afternoon. There is also a monument to Ernest Hemingway and to Orson Welles, who was a great friend of Antonio Ordoñez and had his ashes scattered in an old well on Antonio’s ranch near Ronda. Antonio Ordoñez was also a friend of tour leader Gerry Dawes, who has great remembrances of the maestro.
Gerry Dawes in front of the Ronda bullring at the statue of his friend the late Matador Antonio Ordoñez, Ernest Hemingway's great friend and subject of The Dangerous Summer.
We will visit this exceptionally picturesque city, then relax in our wonderful hotel, which overlooks the mountains surrounding Ronda. We will visit Ronda's famous historic Plaza de Toros and the museum, then we will have drinks on a rooftop terrace overlooking the bullring. In the evening, we will have dinner in a restaurant that is a virtual bullfight photo-and-poster museum that also has photos of Hemingway in Ronda.
Ronda.
Flamenco dancer, Andalucía.
After dinner, we will offer the option of attending a Flamenco performance.
Hotel Reina Victoria (or comparable), Ronda.
Day 03 Sunday, July 20 Ronda – Córdoba AVE – Madrid
This morning we will visit a bit more of Ronda, then ride two hours north to Córdoba, where we will visit the famous Mezquita mosque, Median Azahara and the Monasterio de San Jerónimo de Valparaíso, where Hemingway stayed as guest of the Marqués del Mérito, when he went to a corrida in Córdoba during The Dangerous Summer of 1959, then have lunch at an emblematic Córdoban restaurant in the old quarter.
We will send our bus ahead to Madrid with our luggage and our driver will handle delivering it to our hotel.
We will send our bus ahead to Madrid with our luggage and our driver will handle delivering it to our hotel.
The Mezquita mosque in Córdoba.
In the afternoon, we will take the AVE high-speed train to Madrid, less than 2 hours away, arriving in late afternoon, and check into the Hotel Suecia, where Hemingway often stayed. We will also visit the Palace Hotel, which was one of the settings in the final pages of The Sun Also Rises.
AVE high-speed train.
We will have dinner at Sobrino de Botín, supposedly an EH favorite which also figured prominently in the final pages of The Sun Also Rises. Gerry Dawes has long been a customer of Botín. Gerry will read the passages in The Sun Also Rises that are supposed to be set in this world famous restaurant*, which is claimed in the Guiness Book of Records to be the oldest continually operating restaurant in the world. (*There was another Botín, which closed in 1961, and was most likely the actual setting for that famous wine-soaked roast pig luncheon in The Sun Also Rises. As the author of the expose, I will tell all.)
Hotel Suecia (or comparable), Madrid.
Gerry reading about the scenes set in Botín from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.
Cochinillo asado, roast suckling pig, one of Don Ernesto's favorites, at Botín.
Day 04 Monday, July 21 Madrid
In the morning, we will have breakfast tapas at the Cervecería Alemana, a favorite Hemingway and taurine aficionado hangout that it still much as it was during EH’s lifetime. There is even a "Hemingway table" with photos of Don Ernesto and article reproductions on the wall above the table.
Cervecería Alemana, Madrid.
Photo of Ernest Hemingway and Matador Antonio Ordoñez, Ernest Hemingway's great friend and subject of The Dangerous Summer.
We will take a guided tour of the great Prado Museum and see some of the paintings that Ernest Hemingway so admired.
After the Prado Museum visit, we will have lunch at a restaurant next to el Matadero, where Madrid's main slaughterhouse used to be, a place where a prominent scene in For Whom The Bell Tolls is set. The restaurant is owned by Spain’s greatest cortador deto carve these exquisite expensive hams should be properly carved). We will sample the best jamón, personally selected by this superstar personality. This great professional ham cutter, a great friend of Gerry Dawes, is a consummate showman. (If he is not off traveling to some far away place to cut hams, he may join us and show us his unique style. This will be our first introduction to jamón Ibérico, the world's best hams from acorn-fed, pata negra (black foot breed) pigs. The woman chef, mother of the cortador’s restaurant partner, is a great traditional cuisine cook, so jamón will just be the intro to our meal.
After the Prado Museum visit, we will have lunch at a restaurant next to el Matadero, where Madrid's main slaughterhouse used to be, a place where a prominent scene in For Whom The Bell Tolls is set. The restaurant is owned by Spain’s greatest cortador deto carve these exquisite expensive hams should be properly carved). We will sample the best jamón, personally selected by this superstar personality. This great professional ham cutter, a great friend of Gerry Dawes, is a consummate showman. (If he is not off traveling to some far away place to cut hams, he may join us and show us his unique style. This will be our first introduction to jamón Ibérico, the world's best hams from acorn-fed, pata negra (black foot breed) pigs. The woman chef, mother of the cortador’s restaurant partner, is a great traditional cuisine cook, so jamón will just be the intro to our meal.
Florencio Sanchidrián, Spain's top professional ham carver.
This photo at Restaurante Casa Salvador is courtesy of Casa Salvador.
We will briefly visit the Plaza de Callao, where the Hotel Florida, where Hemingway stayed during the Spanish Civil War, was located and other sites that figured prominently in Hemingway's stays in Madrid.
In the evening, we will gather in our hotel and walk into a less visited section of Madrid, where we will have dinner at a taurine world restaurant, Casa Salvador (open since 1941), that EH likely visited, since Ava Gardner used to dine there. The ambience of this restaurant takes us back to the days of The Dangerous Summer.
This photo at Restaurante Casa Salvador is courtesy of Casa Salvador.
Hotel Suecia (or comparable), Madrid.
Day 05 Tuesday, July 22 Madrid – Burgos – La Rioja
In late morning, we will be picked up by our bus and driven through the Guadarrama mountains, the setting for For Whom The Bell Tolls, to Burgos, a town that EH visited several times and wrote about bringing the queso de Burgos back to Paris on the train and giving to Gertrude Stein.
We will have lunch on roast suckling lamb and other Burgos specialties, then ride about an hour through picturesque Camino de Santiago scenery to La Rioja, where we will check into the Parador de Santo Domingo de la Calzada on the Camino de Santiago, then visit a Rioja family winery, where some really wonderful artisan wines are made in manmade underground caves. We will have dinner at the winery, lamb chops and chorizo cooked in a fireplace over grapevine cuttings, salad, Spanish tortilla de patatas and plenty of the bodega’s vino.
We will also visit a nearby winery that Hemingway once visited to taste wines with Matador Antonio Ordoñez.
Parador de Santo Domingo de la Calzada (Santo Domingo, La Rioja)
Day 06 Wednesday, July 23 La Rioja – Pamplona – Burguete
Rioja family winery where we will have dinner.
Day 06 Wednesday, July 23 La Rioja – Pamplona – Burguete
In the morning, we will leave Rioja and in about an hour arrive in Pamplona, see the memorial bust of EH in front of the bullring and walk along the route of the annual running of the bulls and visit the sites that EH wrote about in The Sun Also Rises. We will visit the Hotel La Perla, where Hemingway stayed once in the later years; see the site on the Plaza del Castillo where Hotel Quintana (Hotel Montoya in The Sun Also Rises), owned by his great friend Juanito Quintana (also a friend of Gerry Dawes), was located; and the Hotel Yoldi, where the matadors stay and dress and where EH visited them before and after bullfights. If we can arrange a typical meal at what is now Restaurante El Torreón del Castillo, we will dine in what used to be the basement level dining room of the former Hotel Quintana. Hemingway wrote about dining there.
A Morning's Pleasure: Running the Bulls at Pamplona (An Excerpt from Homage to Iberia: More Spanish Travels & Reflections by Gerry Dawes)
Restaurante Aralar, Pamplona, one of the places Ernest Hemingway frequented for lunch or dinner. Photograph by legendary photographer Jim Hollander.
Many of the establishments where EH ate and drank no longer exist, but others are still operating and we will have a drink at the Rincón de Hemingway bar of Cafe Iruña, which has a life-size statue of EH hanging out at the end of the bar. And we will have lunch in an EH favorite down on Calle San Nicolas serving the great typical Navarra food that EH would have eaten such as menestra (a panache of local vegetables) and trucha a la Navarra (whole local trout cooked with a slice of serrano ham in the belly) and we will drink the great Navarra rosados that EH always drank here.
Cafe Iruña, which has a life-size statue of EH hanging out at the end of the bar.
Hostal Burguete, where EH stayed when he went trout fishing in the 1920s, featured prominently in The Sun Also Rises.
After lunch, we will ride an hour into the Navarran Pyrenees to the mountain town of Burguete, where we will check into Hostal Burguete, where EH stayed when he went trout fishing on a tributary of the Irati River via an overland trail. Hemingway immortalized the hostal in The Sun Also Rises. Tour leader Gerry Dawes has stayed there half a dozen times. The Hostal Burguete still has the piano that the Bill Gorton character (based on Donald Ogden Smith) played in The Sun Also Rises.
We will ride 20 minutes east of Burguete to visit Orbaitzeta, where Jake Barners/Hemingway actually fished and we will see the spring where he cooled the two bottles of wine he brought from Burguete to have with lunch. We will also visit the nearby Monastery of Roncesvalles, then relax in Burguete, stroll and have dinner on similar fare, including trout, that EH would have known when he stayed here in 1924 and 1925. For those interested, if we can obtain fishing licenses, we may offer a trout fishing expedition 15 minutes from Burguete on the Irati River, where EH fished during visit after The Sun Also Rises was published.
Hostal Burguete, Burguete (Navarra).
Trout fishing in the Navarra Pyrenees.
Day 07 Thursday, July 24 Burguete – Roncal – Olite - Tudela
In the morning, we will drive through awesome spectacular Pyrenees Mountains scenery (Gerry wrote an article on this route that appeared in The New York Times Travel section) to the great cheese producing town of Roncal, where we will have lunch, sample Roncal cheese and drink the wonderful Navarra rosados that EH loved so much that he carried them with him on his travels around Spain following the bullfights.
Roncal.
Castle, Olite.
After lunch, we will continue south to Tudela, stopping for a brief visit to the charming castle village of Olite.
Tudela will be having their annual fiesta, which will be as close as any fiesta in Spain to resembling the Fiestas de San Fermín in Pamplona during Hemingway’s time. Except for the mobs of foreign tourists, which you won´t find here, Tudela has everything that Pamplona has—the running of the bulls, bullfights, processions, fireworks and great jotas, the wonderful typical folk singing of Navarra and neighboring Aragón, which is scant kilometers from Tudela. In fact, many of the jota singers heard during the Fiestas de San Fermín in Pamplona come from Tudela. We will check into our hotel and have a drink in the Plaza Mayor, which should be in full fiesta.
Jota singer José Antonio Pérez Caro, Navarra, homage to the great jota singer Raimundo Lanas, a legend in the first half of the 20th Century.
For dinner, we will ride 15 minutes to the small town of Corella and have dinner with a Navarra winemaker at El Crucero, a great unsung restaurant that specializes in the vegetable-based dishes for which this region is famous, including alcachofas con foie (artichokes with with a seared piece of foie gras on top), the great pochas (beans with chorizo) and cardos con granada (cardoon stalks with pomegranate seeds dressed with local arbequina extra virgen olive oil) plus cabrito asado (roasted youing goat). To accompany our meal, we will have plenty of the great Navarra garnacha rosados (made from free-run juice), that Don Ernesto loved to drink. After dinner, we will return to Tudela and, for those still game, immerse ourselves in the sprit of a great Navarra fiesta.
Tudela monument to the Jota & Jota singer Raimundo Lanas (photo Bernardo Estornés Lasa).
Jota singer José Antonio Pérez Caro, Navarra, homage to the great jota singer Raimundo Lanas, a legend in the first half of the 20th Century.
For dinner, we will ride 15 minutes to the small town of Corella and have dinner with a Navarra winemaker at El Crucero, a great unsung restaurant that specializes in the vegetable-based dishes for which this region is famous, including alcachofas con foie (artichokes with with a seared piece of foie gras on top), the great pochas (beans with chorizo) and cardos con granada (cardoon stalks with pomegranate seeds dressed with local arbequina extra virgen olive oil) plus cabrito asado (roasted youing goat). To accompany our meal, we will have plenty of the great Navarra garnacha rosados (made from free-run juice), that Don Ernesto loved to drink. After dinner, we will return to Tudela and, for those still game, immerse ourselves in the sprit of a great Navarra fiesta.
We will also hear jota singers and the brave of us may participate in the midnight revoltoso, where Tudelanos young and old circle the bandstand in la Plaza de los Fueros in a great wave of people as a band plays, increasing and lowering the tempo, which causes the whole revolution of people in the plaza to speed up or slow down at the whims of the director of the band. The Revolotoso has to be seen to be believed.
Hotel Cuidad de Tudela, Tudela (Navarra).
Hotel Cuidad de Tudela, Tudela (Navarra).
Don Ernesto loved to drink great Navarra garnacha rosados, made from free-run juice.
Day 07 Friday, July 25 Tudela
Today, we will live the Fiestas de Santa Ana de Tudela with the encierro (running of the bulls a la Pamplona) in the morning and in the afternoon there will be a novillada (for apprentice toreros), for those so inclined to attend. The whole town will be in fiesta a la Pamplona in Hemingway's time, i. e., before all the tourists invaded. In fact, when my partner Kay Balun and I went in 2024, we were the only Americans at the Fiesta.
Hotel Cuidad de Tudela, Tudela (Navarra) or Parador de Olite (Navarra).
Plaza de los Fueros in Tudela during the opening of la Fiesta de Santa Ana.
Day 08 Saturday, July 26 Tudela – Valencia
We will leave Tudela in morning and take the long drive to Valencia, a la Hemingway following the fiestas around Spain, to arrive in Valencia during their July Fiestas.
We will check into our hotel, visit the Mercat Central, then have a paella lunch at La Pepica, overlooking the Playa de la Malvarrosa where Hemingway ate when he was in Valencia.
In the afternoon, we will have the option of attending the bullfight and / or visiting parts of Valencia's amazing futuristic City of Arts & Sciences, then in the evening, dinner will be at the exceptional tapas restaurant Casa Montaña (established in 1839), followed by optional fiesta and fireworks.
Hotel Valencia Palace (or similar), Valencia.
We will check into our hotel, visit the Mercat Central, then have a paella lunch at La Pepica, overlooking the Playa de la Malvarrosa where Hemingway ate when he was in Valencia.
In the afternoon, we will have the option of attending the bullfight and / or visiting parts of Valencia's amazing futuristic City of Arts & Sciences, then in the evening, dinner will be at the exceptional tapas restaurant Casa Montaña (established in 1839), followed by optional fiesta and fireworks.
Hotel Valencia Palace (or similar), Valencia.
Paellas at La Pepica,Valencia.
Photos at La Pepica of EH, Antonio Ordoñez and friends having dinner there during The Dangerous Summer.
Owner Emiliano García and Gerry Dawes at Casa Montaña, Valencia.
Casa Montaña, founded in 1836 in the working class/fishermens barrio of
El Cabanyal-El Canyamelar in Valencia.
El Cabanyal-El Canyamelar in Valencia.
Day 09 Sunday, July 27 Valencia – Chinchón
In the morning, we will we will ride across La Mancha, stopping to see some of the windmills made famous in Don Quixote and arrive in the magical town of Chinchón in time for lunch in a great Castilian restaurant overlooking the
Plaza.
Quixotesque windmills in La Mancha.
It is probable that there may be one of the famous bullfights in Chinchón's Plaza Mayor, which our tour participants will have the option to attend.
We
will spend the evening exploring this lovely town with its iconic Plaza
Mayor and have our farewell dinner
at another very special restaurant on the Plaza that has a dining
room that is a taurine photo museum dedicated to the former owner’s
friend, Matador Nicanor Villalta, for whom John Hemingway’s uncle John
Hadley Nicanor Hemingway was named.
Hotel Condesa de Chinchón.
Chinchón's Plaza Mayor.
Patio of the Condesa de Chinchón.
Chinchón's Plaza Mayor.
La Balconada Restaurante, which overlooks Chinchón's iconic Plaza Mayor.
Day 10 Monday, July 28 Chinchón – Madrid - USA
Our bus will take our group to Madrid airport, just under an hour from Chinchón, to catch our flights back to the U. S. Anyone who books a very early flight will need ask us to help line up a taxi to the airport.
'
Madrid Airport, Terminal IV.
Text and photographs
copyright by Gerry Dawes©2022. Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on
Facebook. Publication without my written permission is not authorized.
* * * * *
(Available
at Amazon, Despana (NYC), LaTienda.com, La Boca Restaurant (Santa Fe,
NM) and at Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore (NYC).
Comments are welcome and encouraged.
* * * * *
Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
Poem
by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse
Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt
Huntington,
in the courtyard of the Hispanic
Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York
City.
______________________________________________________________________________________
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36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel
About Gerry Dawes
"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."
36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel
About Gerry Dawes
My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine
enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless
crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce
Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's
culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel
Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019
Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)
Dawes
was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía
(National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on
Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural
tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's
Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava
Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004,
was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles
& Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the
2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature
in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about
Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.
In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.
".
. .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià
in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow
narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish
correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food
journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a
self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again
brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane
Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher,
Food Arts, October 2009.
Pilot for a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
Experience
Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural
Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
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