Parcels of Spanish Memories – The Taucker Travel Blog

I appreciate maps. I can pore more than them endlessly. No make a difference how nicely I assume I know a place, when I seem at a map I see substantially I was not mindful of. At the identical time, as the Polish-American philosopher Alfred Korzybski pointed out, the map is not the territory. When you are truly in a location you working experience a excellent deal that is not on any map.

I discover that no spot is at any time pretty what I imagined it to be. It’s often a excellent deal more. When I went to Spain, I was struck by lots of matters that had in no way transpired to me. For case in point, I had generally thought of Spain as section of Europe, which it obviously is. But when I was touring across the countryside and traveling to the towns, I held noticing what felt like an affinity with Africa.

When that had happened to me, I understood it should not have been a shock. Spain and Africa are appropriate following to each and every other. At the Strait of Gibraltar, they are only divided by 8 miles of conveniently navigable drinking water. There you can see Morocco from Spain and vice versa. In advance of railroads and automobiles have been invented, the sea was by considerably the most successful means of extensive-length travel. So historically, Spain is in some techniques nearer to Africa than Europe.

In distinction, Spain is separated from France and the relaxation of Europe by the mighty Pyrenees mountain variety, which kinds a formidable barrier. That bolstered Spain’s personal character development, and its independence from the relaxation of Europe. Spain has formulated its own distinct character, and through its colonial empire, it distribute that tradition about the world. Like all colonial empires, Spain experienced its oppressive aspect. But total, its cultural legacy is irresistibly charming.

I also found a geological basis for the affinity concerning Spain and Africa. In conditions of continental drift, the motion of landmasses more than the crust of the earth above tens of millions of yrs, Spain was formerly element of the African landmass. It collided with the Eurasian landmass thousands and thousands of several years ago, and the force designed the Pyrenees Mountains. So Spain has a deep affinity with Africa in the land by itself.

But possibly most of the affinity I felt amongst Spain and Africa was based on the existence of the Moors, out of Northern Africa, who occupied Spain for virtually 800 a long time, 711 to 1492.

The Berber-Hispanic Muslims inhabited two-thirds of the Iberian Peninsula for 375 years, occupied about 50 percent for yet another 160 several years, and stayed in Granada for an additional 244 decades. These kinds of cultural influences run deep and do not vanish swiftly. The Moorish culture stays a palpable element of the expertise of modern Spain.

In the 20^th century, the Spain-Africa affinity was mirrored in the art of Pablo Picasso, probably Spain’s most celebrated artist. He began his occupation ably mastering the kinds of his predecessors, from Rembrandt via Gauguin and Van Gogh. Then he learned African art, which led to a revolution in the way he noticed factors. He deconstructed the world and set it back again with each other in a shocking new way. That was the delivery of Cubism. It wasn’t just a design and style that arrived and went, it forever improved the way we see issues and characterize points in art.

As I toured Spain and experienced the distinctive character of each of the cities, I recognized that every had designed independently all through the hundreds of years in advance of the institution of a nationwide entity named Spain.

It was in the watershed yr of 1492 that the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon conquered the Emirate of Granada, finished Muslim rule in the south, and established Spain as a united condition.

The existence of Rome is also spread throughout the state, as in virtually all of Europe and North Africa. You operate into enduring Roman artifacts practically everywhere, this kind of as in Córdoba in which there nonetheless stands a excellent Roman bridge and a huge waterwheel.

Traveling cross country was thrilling since the landscape by itself, with its awe-inspiring Sierra Nevada mountains and fantastic expanses of rolling plains, has heart-stirring elegance. It appears to be to speak quietly and grandly of its individual historical record. But it is the cities where by people today gather and tradition is concentrated in so lots of artifacts, exactly where you can actually get a truly feel for the human background of the position.

Each individual of the metropolitan areas I visited remaining its own parcel of particular reminiscences: Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Córdoba, Granada and Malaga. Each individual felt distinctive and particular person when I was there, and left robust impressions that characterize my memories of them.

Barcelona is the superb Mediterranean seaport in the northeastern part of Spain, as breezy and beautiful as its title is musical, dancing off the tongue. Barcelona was the funds of Catalonia, and was a single of the initial Roman settlements in Spain, founded by Emperor Augustus all-around 15 BC. You can nonetheless see Roman partitions and ruins there.

1 of my most vivid reminiscences of Barcelona is the remarkable Gaudí Cathedral. It was encouraged by medieval Gothic cathedrals developed from the 12^th to the 15^th century. But it was crafted in the late 19th century. It is regarded Catalan Modernisme, or Artwork Nouveau. It is weird and riveting to seem at, colossal and ornate in a strange way. It embodies the flair and flamboyance of Barcelona. I loved the city’s Art Nouveau architecture, and the ornate iron railings and stone function.

Barcelona also captured my coronary heart mainly because it was the cash of Catalonia, exactly where the initially resistance to fascism rose up in the late 1930s in what grew to become the Spanish Civil War.

Madrid is the fantastic cosmopolitan center of Spain, suitable in the center. With a populace of just about 3 million, it is by considerably Spain’s largest metropolis. It is the home of the terrific Museo Nacional del Prado, a single of the world’s finest museums, as effectively as the Reina Sofia museum, which houses Picasso’s “Guernica,” another statement on the Spanish Civil War. The streets of Madrid are exciting, with art pieces exhibited outdoors, sidewalk cafes, and energetic street everyday living. And there’s the enormous Palacio del Oriente, the Royal Palace now used for events and as a vacationer attraction.

Seville had what is said to be the 1st tobacco manufacturing facility, from the 18^th century, which was the environment of the opera “Carmen” by the French composer Bizet. Seville is the capital of the area of Andalucía, with wonderful rolling hills and villages, and houses on hillsides. It is the dwelling of Flamenco audio and dance, and a excellent put to experience the authentic factor. It’s the final resting location of Columbus and also the location of the awesome Alamillo Bridge, intended by Santiago Calatrava employing a harp-like framework. And it is where by tapas originated.

Córdoba was a Moorish city, and centre of the Arabic earth. The Cathedral of Cordoba displays a interesting conglomeration of Muslim and Christian cultures. It was once a Mosque, and nonetheless reveals indicators of its earlier incarnation, now overlaid by Christian symbols. Cordoba was also the birthplace of the good bullfighter El Cordobés.

Granada, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain, was the headquarters of the Moors in Spain. It’s known typically for the Alhambra, their palace. The Alhambra, or “Red Castle” in Arabic, is a brain-numbingly breathtaking palace and grounds, total of ornate, Moorish art and layout, revealing a quite wealthy and made nation that existed there from the late 9^th century until eventually the Moors ended up chased out in 1492 by the soaring new Spanish nation.

Málaga is an Andalusian metropolis on Costa del Sol. It was the birthplace of Picasso in 1881, and is the dwelling of the Museo Picasso Málaga, a museum devoted to Picasso. Málaga was also the website of a romantic legend of Lovers Mountain, or Enthusiasts Rock, explained to be the put exactly where two enthusiasts, a Christian and a Moor, jumped to their deaths somewhat than to be divided. Spain is very little if not passionate.

Spain is a place of good soul, fantastic religious and sensual vibrance. It is an countless source of speculate and heat pleasure, hardly ever to be exhausted.

Viva Espana!

Your humble reporter,

Colin Treadwell