Andalucía fits everyone’s romantic image of Spain, reaching down from the high and forbidding plateau of Castile, across the south of Spain to the shores of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

Here one expects every woman to be a Carmen in a gypsy dress, with a carnation behind her ear, and every man a swaggering Don Juan. Every cliché, of course, has an element of truth, and in Andalucía there is so much color and contrast, vivaciousness, variety and imagination that fact and fiction are constantly blurred. There is a special beauty to such images, and Andalucía is indeed spellbinding with its air perfumed by jasmine and orange blossoms, its soleful flamenco music and its thrilling bullfighting tradition.

Andalucía’s villages are brilliantly whitewashed and laden with red geraniums and purple bougainvillea that grace balconies and courtyards. Its cities are ancient and their old quarters – especially the Santa Cruz district of Sevilla – still evoke their Moorish and Jewish pasts. Fiestas fill the calendar all over Andalucía, and they are colorful and heartfelt events celebrated with typical Andalusian flair. Holy Week processions, the April Fair in Sevilla, the Horse Fair in Jerez de la Frontera, and Carnival in Cádiz are prime examples.

As befits a land that bewitches its visitors, Andalucía traces its ancestry to the mythical kingdom of Tartessos. Greeks and Phoenicians made sporadic appearances in the region’s distant past (Cádiz was founded by the

Phoenicians) and the Romans stayed for centuries. Andalucía was a jewel in the Roman imperial crown, and the same occurred when the Muslim invaders established a glittering court first in Córdoba and then in Granada. When Granada finally fell to the Catholic Kings at the end of the fifteenth century, it was the turn of Castilian nobles to be enchanted by Andalucía’s charms. And America became all-important for Spain; Sevilla was the hub of discovery, conquest and administration of New World Spanish colonies.

Andalucía’s splendid climate allows life to take place out of doors, and eating tapas at outdoor cafés is a favorite pastime. Freshly caught fried and grilled seafood and icy cold gazpachos are the cornerstones of Andalusian cooking, and honey and almond based sweets, a legacy of the Moors, are ever-popular and still made by convent nuns, as in centuries past.