Between the Sierra & the Sea by Marcus Dalrymple

Between the Sierra & the Sea by Marcus Dalrymple
Buy Between the Sierra & the Sea by Marcus Dalrymple at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Travel
Reviewer: Jill Murphy
Summary: An account of a British family's adventures in the Alpujarra, a beautiful and historical region in Andalusia, Spain. Full of larger-than-life characters and the importance of friendship and family, it's a delightful read.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 264	Date: March 2024
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN:
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By all accounts, the Alpujarra is a beautiful and fascinating place. It sits in Andalusia in Spain, on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and is characterised by its fertile farmed terraces. It is rich with history, having been one of the last frontiers in the Catholic reconquista of Southern Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, from the al-Andalus Muslims who had lived there since the Moorish conquest five hundred years before.

I've never been but always wanted to and reading Betwixt the Sierra & the Sea has sharpened that urge. Perhaps next year!

Based on the author's own experiences, the book is partly an account of a British family buying a home in the Alpujarra and partly a love letter travelogue to the region itself. It opens about a year before the house purchase, with a riding expedition. The landscape is stunning. The riding is hazardous but joyous. The people are welcoming and full of humour. And, Dalrymple decides, one day, he will buy a house here.

Buying a house in the Alpujarra as a Brit means you buy from a Brit, isn't quite what I'd imagined but it's true. Bob and Linda, our ex pat estate agents are generally awful, rude, grasping and probably corrupt. But it has to be done. And really, Bob and Linda are just a blip as we follow the family through the years as they navigate buying a house, renovating it, making friends and bringing up their children. 

You can't resist Dalrymple's awestruck reactions to the landscape and his mouthwatering descriptions of the local food and both its special and its everyday dishes. And the book is punctuated by fascinating historical detail. So much has happened to this little piece of land. Dalrymple also talks of population flight and the difficulties in earning a living and other contemporary issues facing this remote area, as well as its traditions, such as boar hunting and riding.

But what really makes the book is the people. Bob and Linda may well have been dreadful but there's Antonio and Carmen, whose house the Dalrymples bought. I loved the idea that Carmen was still behaving as though the house was hers even a decade later - walking in without knocking, "sharing" the washing line. There are bar owners and hunters and musicians and drinkers and farmers. I loved them all.

Part autobiography, part travelogue, Betwixt the Sierra & the Sea is an engaging read. Full of larger-than-life characters and passionate about the importance of friendship and family, rooted in place, culture and history, it's a delightful read.   If Betwixt the Sierra & the Sea appeals, I hope you enjoy it. Dalrymple is a very versatile writer and I can also recommend his thriller State of Grace

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You can read more book reviews or buy Between the Sierra & the Sea by Marcus Dalrymple at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Between the Sierra & the Sea by Marcus Dalrymple at Amazon.com.

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