On September 18, 1966, John, Cynthia and roadie Neil Aspinall flew to Almería in southern Spain for the shootings of Richard Lester’s film “How I won the War.” In the first weeks John and Cynthia stayed in the city in a small and modest hotel, El Delfín Verde (The Green Dolphin), near a beach called Playa del Zapillo. Their room was on the first floor on the corner of the building.
John had his guitar with him and started working on the composition Strawberry Fields Forever. During his entire stay in Almería, he worked on the song and recorded its progress on a tape recorder.
Douglas Kirkland took the photos of John playing guitar on his bed in the hotel room in El Delfín Verde (see gallery).
During daytime, John could be found on the film set in the Almería area. In the evenings John played guitar, continued working on Strawberry Fields or rehearsed his lines for the next shooting day.
Ringo and Maureen also flew over to Spain on October 5 to accompany John.
A few tens of meters from the Dolfín Verde, on the same boulevard, was the restaurant El Manzanilla, where he dined regularly and also celebrated his 26th birthday with Ringo, Maureen and friends on October 8th. Not on his actual birthday on October 9, because that was when John, Cynthia, Ringo, and Maureen moved into the villa Santa Isabel, on the outskirts of town. It was Cynthia who had decided to move to a much more spacious residence. There John finished Strawberry Fields Forever. You can read more about this in another article on this site.
