Spain, Syria and Jordan

Available for over a year

Among the sun loungers and the petanca players of Torre del Mar, on the Costa del Sol, Emma Jane Kirby sees how the financial crisis is still biting hard into Spanish households' budgets and their family life. Perhaps more worryingly still, in a region which had done so well out of European Union membership, it's also making people reconsider their views on the EU. In Amman, Nigel Wilson drops in for a bowlful of a cherished Syrian delicacy: the ice cream of Bakdash - a firm established (and still running) in Damascus, which now also offers a small taste of home to some of the many Syrians who've fled their country. Amazingly, the firm's supply chain still starts in Damascus and crosses checkpoints and battlefields to get its precious frozen cargo into Jordan.