John Lennon

JOHN LENNON

The first interesting connection between John Lennon and Andalucía was his trip to Torremolinos with The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, in the summer of 1963. They spent two weeks there on holiday together, partly because Torremolinos was more accepting of gay people like Epstein, than Liverpool was at the time. In Lennon's memoirs he wrote that he would accompany Epstein to a café, supposedly the Bar Central, where they would sit and watch the handsome young Spanish guys going along the Plaza Costa del Sol.

The visit to Torremolinos by the famous artist has been commemorated by the naming of a street after him: Calle John Lennon, which is found a few minutes out of the centre of the town.

The second and most notable connection John Lennon had with Andalucía was his stay in the villa Santa Isabel, Almería (known locally as Cortijo Romero) in 1966 while filming the comedy How I Won the War. This place was later refurbished and now houses The Museum of Cinema. The villa, located in the Villablanca area outside of the centre of Almería, was also the spot where Lennon wrote Strawberry Fields Forever. For more information see our page on the Casa del Cine.

Fans can sit next to a bronze statue of John Lennon playing the guitar in Plaza Flores in Almería centre, opposite the Hotel Almeria.

Living in Andalucia