Christopher Howse

The essence of Spain

Christopher Howse finds the smell of the country has changed radically

issue 10 March 2007

Spain doesn’t smell the same any more. At the airport, the very first impression used to be of bitter black tobacco smoke, more acrid than Balkan Sobranie, a harbinger of stronger smells beyond Customs.

That smoke would follow you wherever human activity was to be found. It was the cantus firmus in the polyphony of smells flying up from a culture being itself.

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