Madrid/London/Athens | Blanca del Rey sits in front of the stage where she danced for John Lennon until dawn, in the flamenco venue where her late husband once stopped Salvador Dalí from entering with his pet ocelot.
Now all is dark as she waits for the tourists, for months barred by the pandemic, to return. Ms Del Rey’s hopes of reviving her flamenco tablao – one of the most illustrious in Madrid – are entwined with the fate of European tourism, an €800 billion ($1.3 trillion) industry in the fight of its life: to retrieve as much business as it can from the rest of the year.
