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Another world: While tourists are sweltering on the costas, summer in Europe’s hottest city, Sevilla, is a different level
SEVILLA is another world, and in high summer that world is a beautiful and lonely inferno.
The locals flee to the coast (mostly Huelva) while a few foolhardy tourists run rivers of sweat on the tapas bar terraces wishing that they had heeded the warnings of what August is like in Europe’s hottest city.
After 20 years of visiting, I am a little more used to it now, and actually enjoy the peace and emptiness.
One learns to siesta or read in cool darkness and only venture out before midday and after darkness falls.
It was on one such semi-sweltering evening that I stumbled across my old friends, Ignacio and Gola, husband and wife, sitting in the cafe in front of their emblematic hotel, Las Casas de la Juderia, in Barrio de Santa Cruz.
I used to see them weekly when they hosted a tertulia – a sort of political and literary salon – in one of the hotel’s drawing rooms to introduce me to interesting people when I was writing about Sevilla for the UK press.
The hotel is an elegant antique labyrinth, although it does not compare to their other properties like Ignacio’s childhood home, the most beautiful palace in Spain, Casa Pilatos.
Ignacio is the Duke of Segorbe and son of the 18th Duchess of Medinacelli, who was the second most titled woman in Spain after the late Duchess of Alba.
His mother was born Princess María de la Gloria de Orleans-Braganza y de Borbón-Dos Sicilias, descendant of the last Emperor of Brazil, no less.
Years ago, I bumped into Ignacio at the very same table where he was busy decrying the fact that he had been forced to put Casas de la Juderia on the market for ‘financial reasons’.
We stepped into his hotel bar to finish the evening with ‘one last drink before I sell her’.
However, after that final gin and tonic, he ended the evening with a smile.
“Oh, I did have some good news,” he said, bringing out his phone with a photo of the front cover of an Italian newspaper that day. “they have confirmed one of the sculptures we have is a Michelangelo.”
Given the last time a Michelangelo went up for auction it was merely a sketch on paper and it fetched $20 million at Christies, one can only imagine what a life-size young John the Baptist sculpture might go for.
It meant he could somehow avoid selling the hotel after all, and now it is being managed by his daughter.
I almost regretted offering my sympathies for his financial plight that night, but then I remembered that everything is relative, and as I said, Sevilla is another world.
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Brazilian legend Ronaldo, 47, marries third wife, model Celine Locks, 33, in modest Ibiza ceremony
THE low-key wedding of a struggling second division football club president in Ibiza turned more than a few heads over the weekend.
But that’s not surprising when the Spanish football club in question, Real Valladolid, is owned by none other than footballing superstar Ronaldo (the real one).
He was getting married to his blushing bride, Brazilian model Celine Locks, 33, in the small village of es Cubells, just southwest of the island where Ronaldo, 47, owns a luxurious home.
The couple’s engagement, which had been announced in January during a romantic Caribbean getaway, culminated in a picturesque church wedding – the World Cup winner’s third time tying the knot.
As Ronaldo and Celina left the church, showered in confetti, they shared matching Instagram posts, proclaiming: “Today we brought our families together for an intimate religious celebration and thus marked the beginning of a week of many celebrations.”
The newlyweds are reportedly planning a grand celebration for 400 guests at Ronaldo’s home in Cala Jondal.
The love story began seven years ago when Celina, a successful businesswoman and model, first started dating the former Real Madrid and Inter Milan striker.
One of the first people to congratulate the happy couple, who are holidaying in the Dominican Republic, was Ronaldo’s ex-wife Milene Domingues.
The former footballer wrote: ‘I’m happy for you. God bless and protect you always. Long live love.’
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Shakira faces new tax fraud allegations, as public prosecutor accuses her of evading €6m in 2018
COLOMBIAN singing superstar Shakira evaded another €6 million from the Spanish taxman in the year 2018, as well as already having defrauded some €14.5 million in her early years in Spain. That’s according to the Spanish public prosecutor, which has just released information about this second accusation against her.
News about these allegations first surfaced in July of this year, but now the details have emerged of the wrongdoing that the public prosecutor believes it has uncovered.
This includes a scheme to ‘fake’ the transfer of her music rights to a ‘web of firms’, which allegedly turned out to be shell companies with no employees or activity.
The fraud includes €5.3 million of income tax (known as IRPF in Spanish) as well as another €700,000 in capital gains tax, according to media reports about the prosecutor’s findings.
The public prosecutor has called on Interpol to advise the singer about the lawsuit and a court summons for her to be questioned, Spanish daily El Pais reported.
Shakira has been living in the United States since moving with her children from her former home in Barcelona, in the wake of her very public break-up with former FC Barcelona football player Gerard Pique.
This latest accusation comes just two months before Shakira will be in court over the first case, in which she is accused of evading paying taxes in Spain by claiming that she was not properly resident in the country during the early years of her relationship with Pique, from 2012 to 2014.
In that case she could face up to eight years in prison and a fine of more than €23 million.
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