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The Ramirez family has been making classical and flamenco guitars in Madrid for over 125 years. We visited their workshops in Madrid, spoke to Amalia Ramirez (pictured at work below), and heard a professional musician play one of these world-famous instruments in their shop, near Madrid’s Puerta del Sol.

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I was looking through more of the pictures by Multum in Parvo (this months NFS flickr group winner), when I came across this one, of more abandoned greenhouses in Fuertaventura:

Seeing this made be spin around in my chair to look at a painting by my grandmother that hangs on our living room wall.

The painting is of fishermen’s nets hanging out to dry near Pasajes, a small fishing village on the Basque coast near San Sebastian. I have no idea when it was painted, but I would guess that it was sometime in the 1950’s, when my grandfather used to come to Spain on business for his engineering firm. One of his Spanish partners, Gaspar, still takes me out to lunch whenever he is in Madrid. How nice it would be to walk amongst the shadows of those nets.