Ernest Hemingway’s favourite travel destination
In times of great conflict, writers come alive. It doesn’t make them immune to the horror of war, but it appeals to their need to document and observe. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Spanish Civil War erupted, deemed by intellectuals across the globe as Francisco Franco’s attack on the will of the people. As such, many creatives became volunteers in the fight alongside the Republic. Ernest Hemingway was one of them, and his travels to Spain as a correspondent for the North American Newspaper Agency in 1937 saw him fall in love with Madrid as he chronicled the battle.
Hemingway was no stranger to wartime writing; he penned Farewell to Arms about his experience in the First World War. He and Dos Passos both collaborated with filmmaker Joris Ivens as screenwriters on The Spanish Earth, an anti-fascist film made in support of the democratically elected Republicans. The same year, Hemingway started working on The Fifth Column as Madrid was attacked. He left Spain after the battle, but was among a group of international writers present at the Battle of Ebro, said to be one of the last to leave as they crossed the river.
While Hemingway’s time in Madrid was undoubtedly shaped by conflict, it had long been one of his favourite cities. He’d seen it before fascist forces had torn through it in the 1920s, later calling it: “The country that I loved more than any other except my own.” Part of that love was informed by its wealth of bars, cafes, and restaurants, and his enthusiastic attendance of them got him a bit of a reputation.
He’d often stroll through the bohemian literary quarter and settle at the Palace Hotel, which was a handy distance from the Prado art museum he spent afternoons in. Just a stone’s throw away was another one of his favourite spots, the Museo Chicote, one of the first American-style bars. He took to the Chicote so much that he borrowed it as the main setting for 1938’s The Denunciation.
Another Spanish venue that shaped a scene in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, was Restaurante Botín. He eventually became such a familiar face the owners started letting him go upstairs to write in peace, naturally, before joining a huge group of friends for lunch and drinks. Spain and its ever-flowing cup provided ample inspiration for Hemingway in the years he spent there.
His spell in Madrid coloured some of the most well-loved writing of his career, the likes of For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Fifth Column, and Death in the Afternoon. Aside from the novels, his feelings about Spain are maybe best summed up in a brief line of a letter, where he declared Spain was “the last good country left”.
