Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia -

Penelope Chetwode

John Murray Travel Classics

2002

153 páginas

5h 6m

ISBN-10: 071956056X

The two middle-aged ladies are a Spanish mare(aged twelve years and called "the Marquesa") and the author. It was an interest in breeding Spanish horses and a fondness of the work of Richard Ford and George Borrow that brought the author to Spain for the first time. It was the discovery of a map of the remmostest part of the country with fewest roads that attracted her to Andalusia and it was at the Duke of Wellington's stables that she met the Marquesa. Together and unaccompanied they travelled with the aid of a dictionary and the Marquesa´s experience of native travel conditions.

This book is an exploration back in time in wild and unfrequented places among people whose way of life had not changed for centuries and where caves served as houses and the ins were as primitive as Richard Ford found them. Penelope Chetwode is fascinated by animals and human nature, food, sanitation and architecture, she is concerned with religion, and she writes in a direct, compelling style with warmth, humour and candour. Altogether this is a most extraordinary book. The author (who writes under her maiden name) spent many of her early years in India; she is the daughter of the famous Field Marshal and cavalryman and the wife of John Betjeman.