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Hola! We’re Ben and Marina, we’ve been exploring Deep Spain together for over 30 years… but what is it?

Deep Spain is as much the cool new coffee place in Madrid’s Malasaña neighbourhood, as the best old chrome-counter corner-bar that’s been there forever just over the road…

It’s the tiny abandoned village in the depths of the Pyrenees…

… and knowing what rice dish the Spanish really choose when sitting at a sandy chiringuito beach-bar in Almeria, just meters from the Mediterranean…

And it’s the huge bottle of local olive oil you buy at a roadside service-station that’s directly descended from the ventas Don Quijote stopped at in his literary adventures hundreds of years ago.

This is the Spain you’ll never find in a guide book or a bucket-list-travel-guide generated by AI. This is the Spain we’ve been exploring together for nearly 30 years, and can’t wait to share with you all, so you can enjoy it too.

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• Ben and Marina’s invaluable “Bonus Deep Spain Travel Advice” lists at the end of every newsletter post

Ben and Marina live in Madrid with their kids, regularly travelling all over Spain.

Marina was born and raised in Madrid, and has a deep local’s knowledge of Spain, and its food and culture.

Ben moved to Madrid from London in 1998, and has travelled and written extensively about the country since then, including his bestselling memoir ‘Errant In Iberia’.

Together they have taught Spanish to thousands of learners via their Notes in Spanish podcasts and courses, and have won a ‘Best Travel Podcast’ award from Lonely Planet for their Notes from Spain podcast series.

And for curiosity… Marina is a also a yoga teacher and has a Masters degree in Pure Mathematics, and Ben is an avid outdoor landscape oil painter!