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Culture

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Fighting for the future of El Rastro

Last Sunday, hundreds of market stall holders occupied the streets of the Rastro to defend their right to reopen their stalls and to preserve an ancient Madrid tradition. The same leafy street, lined with numbered buttons marking the location of each stall, was suddenly bustling again but with cries, chants and a live klezmer version of Bella Ciao. 
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Forget the Alhambra: This is Granada No Frills

Forget the Alhambra. We’re here to explore those places that can’t be found in the guide books, those bars that can’t be found on pretty streets, and those fragments of history that haven’t been moved to a display cabinet but instead remain in situ for us all to see... if we know where to look.
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The art of war on Coronavirus

The fight against coronavirus echoes something hauntingly familiar in Spain, and it's from this dark period in history that local artist Félix Rodriguez has found inspiration. From the confines of his home in Madrid where he remains, like the rest of us, under lockdown, a renaissance is happening.
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Pilgrimage to El Coleccionista: Lavapiés’ iconic comic book store

Down Calle Tribulete, just a few minutes from Plaza Lavapiés is Cómics El Coleccionista, where it has stood seemingly forever. Opened in 1993 by a pair of friends who met each other through their mutual love of comic books, El Coleccionista has remained virtually unchanged throughout its 27 years of existence.
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Welcome to Blyth, the underdog of North East England

I'd like to transport you to a place a few miles up the road from where I grew up. It's a tiny, windswept port town that had its heyday up until the 1960s. After that, the industries shifted outwards, like the dunes that shield Blyth from the North Sea, switching from mining coal to farming wind. 
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Spotlight on Plaza Nelson Mandela: the heart and the underbelly of Lavapiés

I'm sitting on a concrete bench on Plaza Nelson Mandela, taking in the warm winter sun on my face. A local Senegalese man wearing an ivory silk boubou pours his friends cups of hot black coffee from a canister. On a bench near them, a group of young Argentinians top up their cups of mate and share a smoke.
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The battle for Baobab

Yesterday, the people of Madrid make their thoughts crystal clear: don't evict Baobab! So far, this emotive Instagram post has been shared by 2,793 people in their stories, and viewed by 32,557. To put things in perspective, that's about 10 times more people than my average Madrid No Frills Instagram posts.
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Parallel worlds: saving Buenos Aires’ no-frills bars

Earlier this year, I discovered that I had a long-lost twin in Buenos Aires: Bar de Viejes. This is an Instagram account that was born out of a desire of one person to document the beautiful old Buenos Aires bars, especially those that are under-appreciated and disappearing.