Let’s find out just how much you know! How many of the questions below can you answer without using Google or other online search engines, wiki’s etc to help you? Answers in the comments please, and remember, if you use Google etc to help you, please do not enter your answer here!
The prize: huge amounts of Kudos to anyone who gets all 12 questions right! Full respect for anyone that knows 9 or more. A few points for anyone that knows more that 6, and nout for the rest of you 
Quiz time!
1. Where do the lovers lie of which it is said ‘stupid her, stupid him’?
2. This photo was taken from a vast protrusion of rock overlooking a very pleasant Mediterranean town not far from Alicante? What is the name of the rocky mass, and the town it looks over?
3. Who created the combs of the wind, and where are they?
4. In, for example, 1998, how many ‘duros’ were there in ‘un kilo’, and what is each of these?
5. Name this vertiginous nothern walk, the mountain range it starts in, and both of the villages it links:
6. Name two things you often find floating in the top of a Sopa Castellana.
7. In which northerly port is the football pitch in the photo below located, and what is the name of the stadium?
8. What is Tarifa often claimed to have the highest rate of in Spain, and why?
9. Where is the Puerto del Suspiro del Moro and why is it so named?
10. In what classic Spain novel did the earth move, and for whom?
11. In which city does this crazy biannual competition take place?
12. Which is the 5th biggest city in Spain?
Answers below, and remember, no Google etc!
Update: Wow, all the correct answers are in, in less that 12 hours! Scroll down the comments until you see CORRECT ANSWERS HERE printed 3 times (about comment no. 27) to read the summary. Well done all, and you can still test your Spain knowledge if you haven’t taken the quiz yet – let us know how you do!
Tom
19 Jun 08 at 8:32 am
Er… I got about 2 of those. What is this ‘Spain’ you talk of?
And also: you even changed the names of the images. That’s hardly fair now, is it?
I won’t put my two answers down because I don’t want to steal someone else’s glory. And in case they’re wrong.
frank
19 Jun 08 at 9:15 am
Think I beat you, but only just!
Know the ones in the south, like Tarifa and Puerto del Suspiro del Moro and a few others, but that is it. A couple I have read about, but can’t remember the names, like the walk and the combs. (know where the combs is, can’t remember the name of the guy though!) 
Sarita
19 Jun 08 at 9:16 am
1. ni idea
2. ni idea
3. Chillida-San Sebastian
4. I think 20 duros (5 pesetas) = 100 pesetas so one kilo (1.000.000 pesetas) would be 10,000 duros. But I suck at math so don’t quote me on that.
5. ni idea
6. huevo duro and noodles?
7. ni idea
8. immigration, because of its proximity to the port of tangiers? it’s either that or wind!
9. can’t remember
10. not sure
11. Castells in Castellar, I think
12. Bilbao?
That was hard – but where are the “answers below” that you speak of??
bill
19 Jun 08 at 9:26 am
1 npi
2 Calpe
3 San Sebastian
4 npi
5 Camino del Rey, Sierra Nevada, npi
6 garlic, egg
7 Santander, sardinero
8 Suicide, the wind
9 Granada, last view of Spain of the last moorish emperor
10 npi
11 Taragona
12 Málaga
@Sarita – I think it’s up to us to leave the answers below. Ben should have been more polite and added a “please” on to the end – maybe he’s been in Spain too long
Pepino
19 Jun 08 at 9:30 am
I think I’ve got about 2 1/2 only.
Hangs head in shame, collects passport, leaves country…
… not really, I’m still here
cindy
19 Jun 08 at 9:31 am
im not sure even my spanish husband could qualify for any points!
i got 2 right. i guess i live here, but dont know anything.
curious about the answers !
Ben
19 Jun 08 at 9:52 am
Hmmm, I’m seeing a few correct answers in there, and a few wrong ones I’m afraid
Answers on Saturday, but I’m sure the collective consensus can get them all by then!
hellothere
19 Jun 08 at 9:54 am
1. Never heard of that!
2. I don’t know.
3. I don’t know.
4. 1 duro = 5 ptas. 1 kilo = 1,000,000 ptas
So, 1 kilo = 200,000 ptas
5. Is it in Picos de Europa?
6. Bread and eggs
7. La Coruña, according to the names of the streets… So, the stadium would be Riazor.
8. Wind.
9. Don’t know.
10. Don’t know.
11. Somewhere in the Basque Country (I am ashamed… I don’t remember…)
12. ¡Zárágózá!
Ben
19 Jun 08 at 10:00 am
@hellothere – clever looking at the names of the streets! ¡Qué listo!
luke
19 Jun 08 at 10:28 am
White flag
Parubin
19 Jun 08 at 10:30 am
You got some difficult ones there, Ben. I’m afraid that, at first thought, I cannot add anything besides what’s been said before :
Number five I know for sure but I’ll let others to think it over.
Number eight I’d say Tarifa has the biggest suicide rate, car accidents, or % of nutcases in its population because of the strong wind.
Number seven could sure pass for ‘El Sardinero’ in Santander, but obviously the ‘Universidade Da Coruña’ (which is marked right next to the stadium in the above picture) must be in La Coruña !!!
Here’s two pictures of ‘El Sardinero’ in Santander :
http://www.webdelracing.com/multimedia/fotos/campo/pajaro.jpg
http://www.guiaplayas.es/fotos/el-sardinero-i-2.jpg
richardksa
19 Jun 08 at 10:35 am
Re #1, I didn’t google, but was so intrigued I phoned a friend. She knew at once. But I didn’t so won’t post the answer. But these legends of Spain would make a good subject for a podcast.
Mrmark
19 Jun 08 at 10:42 am
Phew! Not exactly easy is it. I doubt I could have got more than 4 without looking at others’ answers.
Suicide, because of the wind
1) The only “lovers” monument I know is in Teruel
2) Calpe? (big guess)
3) The consensus here is SanSebastian; have to admit I didn’t know.
4) Comparing weight and currency? I know you can do this with pounds; wasn’t aware it worked in Spanish
5) Ni idea.
6) Bread and eggs – well done HelloThere!
7) La Coruna – not hard when you see the name of the University on the map!
9) Near Granada. Was it Boabdil who was the last Moorish owner of Granada and was forced out? Anyway this is the place where he weeped over the loss.
10) Ni idea
11) Obviously in a Catalan city. My choice would be either Tarragona or Barcelona
12) Zaragoza. Funnily enough, 3rd and 4th cause me to think harder. Is it Valencia and then Sevilla?
Mrmark
19 Jun 08 at 10:44 am
Aargh, no intention to put a smiley next to the suicide answer. No bad feeling meant to anyone
(testing
Ben
19 Jun 08 at 10:52 am
@MrMark – pretty good! Kudos for 1 and 2!
frank
19 Jun 08 at 11:31 am
“Near Granada. Was it Boabdil who was the last Moorish owner of Granada and was forced out? Anyway this is the place where he weeped over the loss.”
Yes, at the top of the hill, before you start the long drop down to Motril. He’d weep if he saw it now!
A nice diversion if you are not in a hurry, is to turn off right there, coming from Granada, and drive down through the mountains coming out at Otívar and Almuñecar.
frank
19 Jun 08 at 11:48 am
“Anyway this is the place where he weeped over the loss.â€
Forcing his mother to say,
“Don’t cry like a woman for what you could not defend like a man.”
An interesting read here about the period.
http://tinyurl.com/6fuefs
tailormade andalucia
19 Jun 08 at 12:14 pm
Those were some tricky questions!!
My football and Andalucian knowledge scrapes by, but the rest is pretty poor. I’m intrigued by the 5th biggest city. Is it Malaga? Valencia?
luke
19 Jun 08 at 12:58 pm
I’m going to guess at the 5th biggest city as Valladolid??
Parubin
19 Jun 08 at 1:25 pm
This is my guess for the 10 biggest Spanish cities, in order :
Bilbao 9) Murcia 10) Vigo
1) Madrid 2) Barcelona 3) Valencia 4) Málaga 5) Zaragoza 6) Seville 7) Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
I’d say Málaga, Zaragoza and Seville are pretty much same size so they could swich order in that rank.
The same happens with Bilbao, Las Palmas and Murcia.
ValenciaSon
19 Jun 08 at 3:30 pm
2. Calpe, Peñon de Ifach
I need remedial training otherwise, HELP!!
Ben
19 Jun 08 at 4:37 pm
@VS, correcto
Graeme
19 Jun 08 at 5:00 pm
I go with Teruel for number 1, the Ruta del Cares for number 5, Riazor stadium for number 7.
John Ross
19 Jun 08 at 5:58 pm
I think most of them have been answered by one person or another, so I’ll do the literary one. It’s Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War epic, For Whom The Bell Tolls, and the characters involved are Robert Jordan and María. In a cave, if memory serves.
Parubin
19 Jun 08 at 6:15 pm
@ John Ross :
You are right!! I was thinking about a classic ‘Spanish’ novel, not a classic American novel set in Spain, and nothing came to mind.
My mistake.
Urgellenk
19 Jun 08 at 6:33 pm
Zaragoza is the fifth city in Spain if only the population within the city limits is counted. If metropolitan areas are considered, then Bilbao is the fifth.
Ben
19 Jun 08 at 6:44 pm
CORRECT ANSWERS HERE
CORRECT ANSWERS HERE
CORRECT ANSWERS HERE
Well, I think that’s about all of them right! Congratulations! All together you make a fine bunch of Spainoholics! To sum up, the correct answers are:
1. Where do the lovers lie of which it is said ‘stupid her, stupid him’?
A: Teruel (They rhyme goes “Los amantes de Teruel, Tonta Ella, Tonto El”)
2. This photo was taken from a vast protrusion of rock overlooking a very pleasant Mediterranean town not far from Alicante? What is the name of the rocky mass, and the town it looks over?
A: The Peñon de Ilfach, above Calpe
3. Who created the combs of the wind, and where are they?
A: The famous Basque sculptor Chillida, in San Sebastian (would love to be there now!)
4. In, for example, 1998, how many ‘duros’ were there in ‘un kilo’, and what is each of these?
A: One duro was 5 pesetas, a ‘kilo’ was 1 million pesetas, so that’s 200,000 duros
5. Name this vertiginous nothern walk, the mountain range it starts in, and both of the villages it links:
A: The Ruta del Cares in the Picos de Europa, linking Cain and Poncebos – walk it one day!
6. Name two things you often find floating in the top of a Sopa Castellana.
A: Bread, an egg, chorizo, garlic…
7. In which northerly port is the football pitch in the photo below located, and what is the name of the stadium?
A: Riazor in La/A Coruña
8. What is Tarifa often claimed to have the highest rate of in Spain, and why?
A: Mad people, due to the wind … and high number of annoying hippy kite surfers
9. Where is the Puerto del Suspiro del Moro and why is it so named?
A: Just South of Granada on the main road towards the coast. As mentioned, the last Moorish ruler to be kicked out of the city turned round and sighed as he saw his beloved city for the last time. ‘The Moors Last Sigh’ is also the only Rushdie book I’ve really enjoyed!
10. In what classic Spain novel did the earth move, and for whom?
A: The clue was in the question – Yes, the great, wonderful ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ – do read it, it’s a civil war classic. The earth moved for Robert Jordan and his Spanish lady Maria, in the pine woods around Segovia.
11. In which city does this crazy biannual competition take place?
A: Tarragona. Madness
12. Which is the 5th biggest city in Spain?
A: It goes Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, Zaragoza (then Malaga, Murcia and Las Palmas) according to the Google!
Thanks to all who took part – I thought it might take a little longer than this to get them all! Any surprises?
Ray
19 Jun 08 at 10:24 pm
For shame! My wife and I didn’t know:
5, 7, 10, and 12.
The only one I knew that she didn’t: #3.
The ones I didn’t, but she did: 1, 2, 11.
frank
19 Jun 08 at 11:31 pm
Any surprises?
Mad people, due to the wind
Probably right, but I thought it was highest rate of suicides. Probably both, it does get pretty boring after a while!
Jonk
20 Jun 08 at 1:29 pm
I can see why people go mad due to the wind! When I went to University it was extremely windy and it drove me nuts! I skipped quite a few classes because I just hated the wind.
Sounds pretty stupid looking back on it but at the time I just couldn’t bear the thought of stepping out of the library to head to class.
Stephen
20 Jun 08 at 4:18 pm
Where was the “What is the capital of Spain?” question to make duffers like me feel better?
BrianA
20 Jun 08 at 7:23 pm
@Stephen – go on, you’d probably have answered “S”
Peter H
20 Jun 08 at 9:19 pm
Wow – that’s quite a quiz and too tough for me! No doubt many of the answers could be found in your podcasts or even on this great website but, like using Google, that would be cheating.
Having only just encountered Notes From Spain, I think I’ll continue listening to the backlog of your interesting Podcasts before I attempt such a quiz.
luke
21 Jun 08 at 10:32 am
I didn’t get no. 10 even though I was reading ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ at the same time! That’s pretty dumb.
I’ve found Hemingway’s archaic Spanglish a pretty weird style. Has anyone else been put off by the Spanish grammatical stucture and the use of ‘thee’ and ‘thou’?
John Ross
21 Jun 08 at 3:39 pm
@Luke
>>I didn’t get no. 10 even though I was reading ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ at the same time! That’s pretty dumb.
Not if you hadn’t reached the episode in question or had skipped over it without paying much attention. To tell the truth, the real reason it sticks in my mind even though I read the book over thirty years ago is because it was so widely parodied – apart from the expression itself, you get one of those Hemingwayesque dialogues where someone says one thing then it gets repeated (“Did the earth move for you too?” “Yes, the earth moved,” etc.). In this case, he is creating the effect of post-coital verbiage and it works when you are immersed, but as soon as you step back and look at it objectively it becomes at least a bit ludicrous. The same applies to his Spanglish, which was mocked mercilessly (though I had actually forgotten it until now, so I must have been able to suspend disbelief while reading).
Incidentally, although we aren’t talking about translation as such, it’s worth bearing in mind that translation worked a bit differently back then. Nowadays, more than translate, translators rewrite the text as though it had been written in their target language, they didn’t then, so to read an English translation of a French writer like Camus, you had to get in the rhythm of the original French to be able to enjoy it. It wouldn’t be acceptable nowadays (I think the trend has gone too far, myself, you get all kinds of cultural references distorted or removed altogether, and I think it is robbing the reader of much of the richness of the original. It’s one of many bees in my bonnet). Hemingway was probably trying to exploit that “feel” of the Spanish language, and he must have been using that archaism you mention as a device. Again, as a device, it only works if you accept it or can ignore it, otherwise it can get in the way, like old-fashioned special effects in films or improbable, out-of-the-blue happy endings in Victorian novels.
luke
21 Jun 08 at 4:13 pm
@John Ross
Thanks for the info, I didn’t know Hemingway was mocked for this aspect of his style. I knew that his macho posturing was seen as ridiculous by some. Unfortunately that did get in the way of me enjoying ‘For whom…’. In a 20th Century context, English sounds comical with the personal thou/tú, thee/te, thy/tu.
Btw, I’ve got an edition of Camus from 1942 (Penguin) and can’t see much of a French structure to the language; would you be talking about earlier than this?
luke
21 Jun 08 at 4:38 pm
Sorry, the Camus translation is 1946.
John Ross
21 Jun 08 at 9:44 pm
@Luke
No, it would have been the 1946 translation of “The Outsider” (that what we’re talking about?) that was still being used when I read it, in the seventies. I have had a look at the Wikipedia article on it and it is possible that what I had remembered as slightly exotic phrasing by the original English translator was simply clumsiness, the newer ones look better and more faithful, so I had better abandon line of argument. I still think there is too much over-translation these days, though.
gary
22 Jun 08 at 1:03 am
Reckon I got three – one was a guess – suppose one day I’ll have to get out of the habit of just sitting in a sun dappled plaza sipping a cool beer and nibbling tapas and actually learn some stuff about Spain….
Naaaah..:-D
luke
22 Jun 08 at 12:43 pm
@John Ross
Yes, the book I have is ‘The Outsider’. Taking it off the book shelf has piqued my interest and I’m enjoying rereading it after about 20 years. I haven’t read it in French before but, for me, the translation holds up pretty well.
Ben
22 Jun 08 at 3:04 pm
@Luke, I reread that after 17 years last summer, what a book!