The Skyline of Madrid: a sculpture museum

I remember, as a child, how my mother would tell me off for not looking at the ground when I was walking and running around. As much as I appreciate (now) her caring for my welfare, it is a piece of advice that I always found very hard to heed. I have been a curious spirit all my life: the kind of boy whose gaze wanders about, absorbing all things around, looking for all new kinds of wonders (and ending up more often than not with skinned knees and dirty clothing after tripping in this or that crack in the pavement). Still that urge and restlessness tends to wear off as years go by and it wasn’t until past my teenage, when life put me up on top of a double-decker sight seeing bus for the first time, in my native city, that I reencountered the pleasure of wandering around looking up high. When you are in Madrid, there are many things that you do not want to miss, and the ceiling of this city is one of them.
The trend started around the XIX century, while American cities started their efforts to build their skyscrapers higher and higher, banks and insurance companies in Madrid hired baroque style sculptors in a race to make their home quarters the most evoking and beautiful landmarks of the not so high skyline of the city. And so Madrid became a monumental city, safe under the watch of mythic heroes and figures. Phoenixes, champions, roman aurigas, kings and princes, temples and magical creatures crowned the buildings; some of them have been relocated, to be best admired, in more accessible places, while others have been replaced with replicas in lighter materials, favouring the welfare of the constructions, the originals now in museums, but there are still quite a few to recreate your senses in.
You will find many of them in the axis Puerta de Alcalá – Plaza de España, spanned by the Gran Vía: stand by the famous Puerta de Alcalá and walk down towards Cibeles square keeping your gaze levelled towards Gran Via an Alcalá streets, on the other side of Cibeles; in the confluence of these you will find Metropolis building, formerly home quarters to the insurance company La Unión y El Fenix. Nowadays a Winged Victory crowns the building, taking the place of the Phoenix which left the building along said company (and can be seen in a couple of other buildings in Madrid that belong, or did, to the insurance holding, like the Gran Melia Fenix hotel, by Columbus’ square, or the Union y el Fenix building further up the Paseo de la Castellana, where it is crossed by a bridge, part of Eduardo Dato street, or the Madrid-Paris, also in Gran Via). The appeal and ornamental richness of the piece remain, howevever, intact. A little way up on the left hand side a Roman auriga, lifted above its chart for better view from the ground, looks ready to ride, soaring the skies of the city, on top of the Hispanic-American Bank. On a lower height he is watched by a worthy female counterpart: Palas Atenea, or Minerva, classic interpretation of the goddess of Knowledge and Arts, symbol of the Society of Arts, whose building protects, vigilant. As you walk along Gran Via or Alcalá in that same direction you fill find more examples in roofs and façades: temples (Callao square), Chariatides, gargoyles (dog faced, halfway through the first strand of Gran Via street a portal on the right hand side as you go up)…leaving Gran Via and Alcalá there are fantastic pieces above other buildings like the Ministry of Agriculture, in front of Atocha Train Station, or by the northwestern exit/entrance to the city, Moncloa, the Triumphal Arch, or, returning to Cibeles square, the angels holding the shield in Linares palace, or the allegories that sit high perched where this entry started in la Puerta de Alcala.
These were a few examples, I do not pretend to make an exhaustive list of items; I will be happy if I can just bring out from you that necessity of looking up high, and explore, that I am sure you too had in your days. Done? Good, then drop by my city, and take a stroll around, you will not regret it. Oh, don’t worry about skinned knees and sore shins: we have chemist and pharmacies aplenty, and you can find (or bring along) you tender caring one to tell you off and kiss the pain good bye.

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Gaztelugatxe: the Chapel of the Sea

Myth, superstition and fantasy are basic ingredients deeply embedded in human nature. Some places have an equally evoking and intimidating atmosphere that bring out and excite that old connection, which dwells within us all, with the popular lore of old times when life was harsher and answers fewer. Much of this lore is related to the ocean, a horizon too vast to be tackled or spanned by most simple, mortal souls (including mine), and so many of these wonderful sceneries occur in the confluence of land and sea, be it in battling, tender, or confusing union; it is in such spots where one can let go of logic, science and the constraints of modern life and thankfully yield to feelings and memories of many years and people before us, that seem suddenly much more appropriate to describe and handle these wondrous visions. San Juan de Gaztelugatxe takes me back to classic myths of angry gods beneath the waves, to old sailors rhymes, legends of pirates, corsairs and freebooters, and tales of loves lost to the sea in dark stormy nights, maidens looking far into the ocean for the ones that will not return to land.
A medieval small bridge spans the few yards between mainland and the crag which stands amid this cliff surrounded shallow inlet in the north coast of Spain, part of the Basque Country. The waves have been working the cliffy coast for millions of years, eroding and biting at the limestone flesh to carve, peel and sculpt, resulting in a wild, rough landscape and slowly extracting from the coast this tiny island of rock, decorating it with arches and tunnels. Only recently, just a thousand years ago, man has crested the rock with a small construction of his own design. On top of the boulder stands a small chapel dating from the X century and advocated to John the Baptist, who, legend has it, spanned in just four steps the four miles that lay between this place and the nearby located town of Bermeo to found the chapel. According to history we owe its origin to the Templars, although the details that made the chapel a temple of this order, like the orientation to the rising sun and part of its design, have been lost in later reconstructions. One thing that has not been lost is it connection with the sea and its people. Sailors have always prayed and trusted their fortunes to Saint John in this region, and the interior of the church is profusely decorated with scale ships and paintings of wreckages and ships in disastrous sea storms, brought either to thank miraculous escapes from this circumstances or to ask the saint to spare them from such destiny in forecoming voyages into the sea. Apart from this the chapel itself is a humble building as a sailor’s church must be. Many pilgrims have come to Saint John in times past, and many locals still do often, specially in holy dates, and there are many narrow trails around the densely forested coast leading to this place. They all end at the beginning of the 237 steps that climb the steep rock up to the chapel, where you can toll the bell three times for good luck. Small boats would sail round each side of the rock before going into sea, and bigger ships would face it from further offshore and steer pointing once port and once steerboard of the crag, as a horse rearing to its master, to call upon themselves protection from St John. I have heard from the locals that there is, in a cove underwater beneath the island, a sculpture of the Virgin Mary to which local divers (water sports are very popular in the area, including international competitions like the World Billabong Pro surf championship) bring small presents and tributes.
The view from the top of the stairs is awesome, covering several miles of savage cliffs, including Matxitxako Cape, the northernmost point of the country, just a mile to the east, and, just a hundred yards in that direction, the rock of Akatz, only a bit smaller that the one you stand on top of; the cliffs of Akatz are much steeper, and the rock is only trod upon by passing sea birds, in flocks that some days cover all its surface. There is a small shelter just by the chapel, featuring a fireplace and even somewhat primitive toilet facilities, so you can cook and even spend the night there.
From Bilbao (one of the five biggest cities of Spain, home to the Guggenheim Museum and accessible by international and domestic flights, as well as national rail) you can get to nearby Bermeo by train or bus. From Bermeo you can get to San Juan by bike or walking (about 4 miles). If you have a car you can reach San Juan from Bilbao in 45 minutes if you don’t get lost, which you should not if you have a decent roads map or a good GPS. One final important consideration: the road runs along the coast on top of the cliffs, but the rock is at the bottom; you have to pay attention and you will find a small wiewpoint from which a narrow not very well cared for road descends the last mile to the medieval bridge. If you are walking, that means you have a steep mile to walk down before you tackle the stairs and then you will have to walk it back up. There are a few fountains on the way with signs that say the water is not good for drinking (signs are in Basque), not because it is necessarily contaminated but because it is not chlorated. I have had a few small gulps of it and had no problems, but it is up to you to take the risk, you must know how strong your stomach and defences are.

More:
Gaztekugatxe Chapel in Wikipedia
Basque Country Rail
Bizkaia Region Buses

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The Green Spain: Galicia

International tourism business in Spain started flourishing in the sixties and seventies decade of the 20th century, mainly featuring beach and sunny locations and (at the time) very cheap prices in an economy that fell way behind the rest of the western world. Thus most topics and known images of the country outside of our borders spring from or are related to the areas that offer these particular experiences: the eastern rim with the Catalonian Costa Brava or Valencia (Paella, if eaten everywhere in Spain, is a Valencian traditional dish) to quote just two, and Andalucía in the south coast, with the Costa del Sol of Málaga province as most popular attraction. Most of these areas are, if enjoyably sunny, also dry and arid looking in general to the visiting and local eye. And I get the feeling that such is the impression most tourists, would be and returning alike, have from Spain. They are mistaken. For Spain is also humid, green and deeply forested , as you will confirm if you go and stride for a while along the north coast and westernmost areas. Even Andalucía turns greenish as you cross to its western counties, encountering the Coto de Doñana, second biggest marshes region in the whole of Europe, or the mountain range of Grazalema, which is the rainiest spot of the country. As for the north it is all a green lively scenery that turns even more lush as you go from east to west until you reach Galicia in the northwest corner of the peninsula: the wild celtic lung of our barbarian heritage.
Galicia is the perfect communion of land and sea, with a fisherman’s soul but inextricably attached to its hills, low mountains and forests. It has a body of stone into which the Atlantic Ocean and the Cantabric Sea have carved firths and lagoons: the rías. This word’s origin is very illustrative; you see, ría is the female of the word for river (río) representing the sea penetrating and inseminating the land, in opposition to inland waters releasing into the big blue. You will find the Rías Bajas (Low Inlets) in the south west of the region, close to the Portuguese border, and the Rías Altas (High Inlets) in the north rim of Galicia.

The five Rías Bajas (South to North they comprise the inlets of Vigo, Pontevedra, Arousa, Muros I Noia and Corcubión, all named after the main villages located at their innermost points) present a curious microclimate, pretty mild compared to the rest of Galicia, with as many days of sun per year as the Costa Brava, and quite a few small but nice blue flagged beaches, including the beaches of the Cíes Islands (recently acclaimed by Conde Nast Magazine, if memory serves, as being among the 10 most beautiful in the planet) in front of the entrance to Vigo Inlet, and the beach of La Lanzada, a bit north from there, in the outer side of the Ría de Arousa, very close to the village of El Grove, both still wild. Western orientation provides for the most spectacular sunsets, too. The cultural patrimony of this area includes treasures of architecture and sculpture, mainly of Gothic and Romanesque style and dating, almost everywhere you go, and you should visit and see, to name but a few, the old quarter of the city of Pontevedra, monasteries like San Juan de Poio or San Ero de Armenteira, and captivating old towns like Cambados or Padrón, and the tiny fishermen village of Combarro, one of the most charming places you can find in Galicia and even Spain in general. The Isla de la Toja is also a balneary center of first order in the country, with few but magnificent spas.
A few miles into the coast, and halfway from Rias Bajas to the north end of Galicia you will find Santiago de Compostela, capital of the region and resting place of Spain’s patron saint, St James (Santiago in Spanish). There is a saying in Galicia that might give you a slight idea of the stone engraved beauty of this city: “In Santiago, rain is art”; for in the rainiest city of the country, every falling drop outlines an utterly fascinating compound of medieval dating constructions crowned by St James’ cathedral, standing in the Obradoiro square, one of the most beautiful settings of this kind you will find in the planet.

The north coast of Galicia starts in the west corner with a stretch of wild rocky cliffs and rocks beaten by the sea, known as Costa da Morte (Coast of Death-because of the hundreds of ship wreckages that have taken place in its dangerous waters) that after about 110 miles leads to A Coruña, first of the Rias Altas (west to east, A Coruña, Betanzos, Ares, Ferrol, Cedeira, Ortigueira, Barquero, Vivero, Foz ad Ribadeo). The city of A Coruña, founded, legend says, by Heracles himself after defeating a dragon, is the most modern and cosmopolite of Galicia, mixing modernity, romanticism and pragmatism. Gothic churches share the city with Baroque civil constructions, Modernist and Futurist buildings, medieval castles, French renaissance gardens and a 60 m roman lighthouse dating from the II century. All this surrounded by the promenade along the seafront, one of the longest and most beautiful in Europe, crossing two excellent beaches , the Museum of Man, the Castle of San Anton and the roman lighthouse (Torre de Hércules or Heracles’ Tower, symbol of the city). Although the climate is much rainier and misty and the waters of the Cantabric Sea (mixing the Atlantic with the British Channell’s that come from the North Sea) are pretty colder than the Mediterranean’s or the Atlantic’s you can find wonderful beaches along the Rias Altas, including the spectacular Playa de las Catedrales (beach of the Cathedrals) small in its strands but fascinating in the forms of the cliffs that can be seen and explored during the low tide. In this area you can also find the Cabo del Mundo (World’s cap), with the highest cliffs in western Europe (more than 600 m) except for the Nordic fjords. The cultural patrimony and the stone jewels also abound, featuring monasteries like San Andres de Teixido, second most important pilgrimage in the region after St James or villages like Betanzos.

There are too many charming places in Galicia and as usual the entry is stretching too long. Many of the locations I have quoted will hopefully star a more comprehensive article some of these days. I do not want to finish, though, without suggesting one more location, this time inland: the city of Lugo, in time capital of the roman province of Gallaecia. Patrimony of Humanity like Santiago, it keeps the best preserved roman walls compound of the world (and many other things, but just this is enough to justify the visit).

Final considerations: thanks to heavens above, tourism in Galicia is not a massive thing like it is in other parts of Spain. Urban “development” goes on, but luckily at a slower pace. Tourism is a big source of income in this area which is economically poor compared with others in Spain, but it has evolved through person to person recommendations with the locals realising potential business and setting up small family hotels, instead of huge industrial investments. You can also find big hotels, mainly in the big cities and around Rias Bajas, but that is not the rule. Let’s keep it that way.

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Monasterio de Piedra: Gardens of lush beauty

I have led many tours, in many occasions, to places I was visiting for the first time myself, which is obvious and natural if you think about it (“nobody is born knowing” we say in Spain, and, after all, only practice makes perfect), and a significant part of my job involves thorough research and preparation to ensure, among other things, that such circumstance doesn’t show. Even if you understood it, much of the magic I strive to transmit through my work would be lost and nobody wants that, so I am very used to tread confidently and knowingly unknown trails, trusting my skills and previous preparation. And still, every now and then, a place surprises you and knock’s you off your pace. The actual beauty of the Gardens of El Monasterio de Piedra caught me embarrassingly unaware and produced one such situation first time I engaged it.
You see, this place is topic in Spain, one of those romantic sites nearly everybody has been to in that trip the pictures of which they threaten with showing you (all 600 of them) every odd reunion (right over coffee, before you have had time to make a remark on how late it’s getting for that important business you have this afternoon). Because of this, most people underestimate it or just rub it off with a shrug. I did so, too and didn’t pay due attention to graphic reference material; as a result, most of that first walk we had around this idyllic place it was all I could do not to stare open mouthed at its cascades, pools and caverns.
This place translates to English as Monastery of Stone and owes it’s name not to the materials of the actual building but to the river Piedra (“Stone”) that runs through the surrounding private natural park, creating the wonders I have mentioned. The monastery itself was founded in 1197 by some Cistercian monks come from Poblet, in the Catalonian region, and is a nice mixture of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque elements; have a go and visit it while you are there, if you have time, but keep in mind that the park is the jackpot, and it will take you the best part of three hours to trail it exhaustively. The monastery and its gardens stand in an area of small hills and valleys at the end of a winding old road, near medium sized town of Calatayud and close to much smaller village of Nuevalos, about 3 hours drive from Madrid or 1,5 from Zaragoza, capital of the Aragonese region. You will have to take a few detours from the highway, so make sure you’ve done your home work or GPS is connected. If you don’t have a car, best option is to take a bus from Zaragoza (most days of the week there is one in the morning and one back at around 5 pm, more or less 15 € return ticket).
You will be given a map of the park which helps to identify and find easily the best spots. Arrow signals (red to go deeper into the gardens, blue to find your way out) along with the map will hopefully make sure you don’t get lost. From the furthest point inside the park it can easily take you more than one hour to get back out. The park descends to the lowest part of a narrow valley, following the river in a few spectacular jumps like the 50 meters high Tail of the Horse: you don’t want to miss this: once you locate this one, find, close by it, a very steep tunnelled stair, it will take you down to a huge moss covered cavern behind the actual waterfall. This was the very feature that made me lose my step and stare tantalized for a couple of minutes before I realized one person from the tour was asking me something and I was ignoring him completely. Luckily for me I am very enthusiastic in all my lectures and trips and it shows when something fascinates me, even if I have seen it a dozen times, so my “No matter how many times I have come here, it still captivates me” sounded very natural for most witnesses. Judging by the wink of his eye and the cunning smile, though, I don’t think I fooled the guy involved. Down in the valley you will pass some artificial piscifactory pools into a gorge that surrounds the Mirror Lake and the Devil’s Crag. On your way there and the rest of the park you will find beautiful corners with evoking names like Diana’s Bath, Trinity Falls, the Panther’s Cave or the Sombre Waterfall.
As a last recommendation, best place to have lunch is a very nice restaurant about a mile off the Monastery by the same road you got there. It’s called the Mirador.

More info:

http://www.monasteriodepiedra.es/

http://www.estacion-zaragoza.com/

http://www.restaurantemirador.com/index2.htm

More photos:

http://www.fotoviaja.com/2007/01/11/zaragoza-monasterio-de-piedra

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El Angel Caído: Monument to Lucifer

My beginnings in the tourism business took place on top of a panoramic hop on-hop off bus in Madrid, seven years ago, pointing out the most interesting spots to the tourists; we completed, depending on traffic and time of year, an average of seven tours a day and I worked there for about a year, which more or less adds to about 2000 trips round the city: enough to get you bored no matter how much you love your city and it’s beauties. Fortunately, every trip had a few rewarding moments where you could see something in the tourist face that made it worth it: expressions of awe, disbelief, admiration or simple always welcome fun. For most people, one of the most surprising details of their visit was finding out about the Fallen Angel. “And on this corner of El Retiro Park, further up that road to your right, you will find the only monument in the world dedicated exclusively to… Satan”. Best effect if there were kids on board and you lowered and hoarsened your voice as you revealed the starring character, eyes not blinking and gaze lost, in your best imitation of “Someone flew over the cuckoo’s nest”. I am not Robert Redford, you know, and combining the acting and my face resulted more than once in crying kids and angry mums, I swear!
The statue, which presents very recognisable helenistic, baroque and romantic influences, is a beautiful piece of work of a much more melancholic than terrifying nature. It can be also disquieting though, especially if you approach it in a clouded windy autumn afternoon and there seems to be nobody around but you and an evil looking boy wearing a cardigan. Damian? Is that you?...
The sculpture, inspired by some verses of Paradise Lost by John Milton, dates from 1877, and is signed by Ricardo Bellver, originally made in plaster cast and later molten to bronze by the Thiebaut-Fils house in Paris to fit the requirements of the Universal Expo of 1878 in the French capital. In 1879 was first placed in El Retiro and in 1880 a pedestal was designed and built in bronze and stone, presenting infernal faces to match the subject. The complete piece was inaugurated in 1885.
Want to know something weird about its location? Although measurement systems at the time were not nearly precise enough to notice this, the exact official altitude in meters from sea level of the fountain’s location is… you guessed it! 666, the number of the Beast! Awesome, right? (this is no joke or invention and there is a plaque in the ground, near the fountain, certifying this fact by the National Cartographical Institute).

(…)what time his Pride / Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host Of Rebel Angels, (…) To bottomless perdition, there to dwell / In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire, (…) round he throws his baleful eyes / That witness'd huge affliction and dismay / Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate (…)

John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, Chant I.

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Accommodation in Spain: Quality Standards

It’s been a while since I last visited France, but I have led several tours there in the past, particularly to the south region bordering Spain and, more specifically and most often, to the catholic pilgrimage spot of Lourdes, and every time I go it always worries me, when going to a hotel I have not stayed in before, not knowing what to expect. Of course the company I lead the tour for always gives me some information about it beforehand (well, not that much, actually just the name, address and contact) and I do some research through the web to find some more, but unfortunately that doesn’t work always (not even often). Category standards are just too vague. This has happened to me in France, Portugal, Italy and the UK: one three stars hotel (not many of them) turns out sparkly clean, diligently serviced, newly refurbished and presents ample rooms and baths, next three stars hotel is old and wrinkly like old movies’ landladies, with a just as grumpy a service and staff, and a cleaning condition, or at least look, that results in getting of the bed in the morning scratching your body and wondering whether that bugbite was already there in your thigh before you reached your room last night, while you make your way to the tiny shower plate of the claustrophobic bathroom a lot quicker and readier than you do in the sleepy waking ups of your own home.
This is rare in Spain: it is not unheard of, but regional tourism authorities keep a very consisting policy concerning the quality of services. The category division by stars is mandatory in all the country for hotels (and most areas have also other category divisions for non hotel accommodations like aparthotels-usually ranged 1 to 5 “keys”-hostels, road motels, pensions, campings, etc), and strictly supervised. Each region’s authority establishes a list of minimum services and extras that must be available at the hotel in order to claim a given number of stars and failing to produce them results in very severe fines, loss of stars and other administrative (and sometimes penal) measures. Tourism being a very important source of income for the country, regions strive to be competitive and these standards are usually high. Sometimes you can even find hotels that are much better than their announced category. Why is this? They simple have reached and compiled a very high level and number of services that would allow them to gain a new star, but in doing so they would be also stepping up into a tax category of luxury service in which they do not want to incur yet.Of course you still find differences from one hotel to the next in the same category (especially in 1 and 2 stars) which mainly occur because not all hotels choose to provide the same services: if law decrees that 15 out of a list of 20 services must be provided in a 3 stars hotel, and 9 of them are compulsory, different hotels may differ in which other 6 they offer. Admittedly, some of those might be the ones you particularly like to have available, and so these explanation may not satisfy you if you are disappointed on arrival, but consider all the above and you might find that it is not the quality of services what is nagging at you. If still you think you have reasons to do so, please, by all means take measures about it; a complaint form in Spain is a very important tool for tourism: fill one, give the hotel/restaurant/agency/whatever else their copy, keep your copy, and mail the third one to the tourism authorities. This is the right way to do it and if the guy attending you knows anything about his job and you are right in your complaint, the very second he realizes you know what to do with the form he will probably try to amend the problem a.s.a.p to prevent you from sending it, which more often than not results in a quick fine of minimum 5000 euros for his business (if your complaint is rightful). Hope this was useful.

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Spain: a sketch ( II )

A rough outline of the geography of Spain: It occupies most of the Iberian Peninsula, two minor archipielagos (Canary Islands, by the norhtwestern shores of Africa, and Balearic Island in the Mediterranean Sea to the east of the peninsula) and two autonomic cities just across the strait in the Moroccan coast (Ceuta y Melilla), plus a few other little islands close to our shore and Africa. Portugal and the Atlantic to the west and South, Cantabric Sea and France to the north, the Mediterranean on the East side and the strait of Gibraltar and Africa behind it, to the South, are its borders.

A 600 m. in average mesa covers about half the area of the peninsula (the central part), surrounded by middle ranged mountain systems. This Central Mesa features the capital region and city of Madrid, roughly in its centre, the two Castilles (Castilla León, kind of Northwest of Madrid and Castilla La Mancha, kind of South East), Extremadura (South of C. León) and Aragón (North of C. La Mancha). The north coast presents (West to East) Galicia, Cantabria, Asturias, the Basque Country and Navarra (the former touching Aragon to the East and the Pyrinees to the north, and thus actually not in the coast). As for the eastern shores (north to south) we boast Catalonia, Valencian Region, and Murcia. South of Murcia all the way to Portugal lies the golden sunny jewel of Andalucía.

As a rule of thumb, climatic conditions tend to go from humid and fresh in the north to hot and arid in the south, temperatures are usually more severe in the central mesa and milder in the fringes and the Canary Islands have an irritating nice weather (irritating for those of us who do not enjoy it, obviously). Of course there are a quite a few exceptions to the rule, including mountainous climatic conditions and a couple of microclimates like the tropical area occurring in the coast of Granada (much milder and more humid than the rest of hot and equally sunny Andalucian coast), the Coto de Doñana National Park (second biggest area of marshes in Europe behind the French Camarge) also in Andalucia, or the awkwardly sunny (awkwardly for Galicia, greenest, rainiest and most humid region in the country) Rías Bajas in the north west corner of Spain, to quote some. (more to come)

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Spain: a sketch ( I )

Some data for consideration (when I’m working as a guide my lectures are prepared and I give exact figures and dates but I won´t now. because if you are at a computer you have wikipedia or the Britannica for that and I really do not believe a country is made up of exact numbers-much the opposite):

Spain is roughly half a million sq. Km, numbers a population close to 45 million and stands between the eighth and eleventh position among the richest countries in the world depending on which aspect of economy you focus your view at. We float amidst two seas and an ocean and overlook a border between two continents (two worlds for many) and present, within an area that doesn’t make it even to the fiftieth country in the world, just about every kind of climate known in the planet, only declining polar arctic, desertic arid, tropical moonsoonic and the occurring in Tundra regions in north Europe and Asia (I can´t recall the term now).
The beginning of Spanish history as a more or less consistent entity could be estimated in times of the Roman empire (Hispania was how classic greeks and romans named this region, about 21 centuries ago) although even older cultures-Iberians, Celts, Phenicians and Tartessicans inhabited the area before that (a couple of theories-and roman texts by a classic historian, Plinius or Strabo if I remember right- place Atlantis close to the southwest shores of the peninsula). Many historical characters from the empire were born in Hispania (then a province of Rome): philosophers like Seneca, emperors like Theodosius, Hadrian or Trajanus, and military geniuses like Scipio.
In early medieval times most of what is today Spain found a semblance of unity under the crown of Visigoth kings, of Germanic ascendant, who had won over the also Germanic tribes of Suebi , Vandals and Alans. They didn’t represent a strong resistance when the muslims came.
In less than 30 years, starting in 711 they conquered almost the entire peninsula and became a flourishing caliphate which would gain political and religious independence from Damasco and stand as the most refined and rich territory in the western world at that time (Cordoba, capital city, had a population of more than half a million souls!), thanks to the cultural convergence of Muslim, Jews and Christians. Christian kingdoms would take seven centuries to conquest Spain back, a process that ended in 1492, just in time for Columbus to discover a new continent and set the basis for the greatest empire of the renaissance age.
I guess it is more or less from this point onward that Spain makes it to non Spanish (or especially non European) history text books, so I will not dwell much on the rest of the story: we amassed a huge number of colonized territories around the globe and had many lineage connections with other European monarchies, as well as a few popes (probably the most famous of them was Cesar Borgia, from Valencia in the east coast of Spain), and we lost those influences and lands throughout the following centuries, in a succession of bad political decisions, military conflicts and probably a fair share of bad luck which included being one of the countries occupied and taken by Napoleonic strategy prowess. Economical and political diminishment ensued, Spain falling behind the ranks of what is generally considered the first world, and modern times saw us going through our last totalitarian monarchies, a couple of republics poorly organised and worse managed (up to twelve different presidents in the span of less than thee years during the second Spanish Republic!), a civil war the aftermath of which still hangs in the air of our political and ideological consciences, and the oppression of a dictatorship that, if managed to keep us somewhat protected (some would say alienated) from the worst of the Great World War and succeeded, during its last years, in starting a process of economical rejuvenation, did not do much to make us become the “One, Great and Free” nation which Franco and his followers up to present times claimed we were. Democracy (in a transition to Parliamentary Monarchy, supported by a king for whom Franco planned an absolutist model) has brought and age of rebirth and led our steps back to the front line, creating a country rife in social changes and improvements, economically strong, culturally rich… Of course we trip sometimes, like a young child learning to walk, but we keep trying, we learn, we improve, sometimes we rest and consider, who knows the wonders that await in days to come.

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Why Spain?

Worldnaut's Journal / D. 11748:

Bullfighting toreros, paella rice dish, sleeping siesta, olé!
Is that what you were looking for (please say no)? If the answer is yes, buddy, you in for a one night stand with the sharks! Away with him lads, off ye go!
Mmmm. No, on second thought let’s not do that. Oi! Get him off the plank, will ye! He is probably the one who has most to learn, and he might well be our first visitor, no good in letting him roam the seas (all of them at same time, even) sailing some fish guts, is there? No good for business at all.
Sorry, sometimes I get carried away by folklore; probably most people that work in a ship end up, sooner or later, somewhat fed up with all the stereotypes of their way of life and it just doesn’t seem fair.

It is not fair because I really enjoy eating paella every now and then, I like most flamenco music (guitar playing like Paco de Lucía’s can really move me) and, if I had the time I obviously would love to take a nap everyday after lunch (I am all against bullfighting, though; I won’t lecture you about it-not the place or the moment-but I do not believe in cruelty to animals). And yet it does vex me if I see such a vast array of possibilities and wonders as Spain offers reduced to a few stereotypes. I am not a patriot. The people of Spain are strongly divided ideologically (can’t help it, we are too young; I’m 32, almost the same age our democracy is, which is young for a person and even younger for a country: no matter how old most of our culture is, civil war is still very close in time, and wounds are still sore if not bleeding) and most right wingers take pride in being authentic patriots; I’m neither thing. I was born in Spain but I’m not proud of that because it would be like being proud of being born rich(that would have been fun, though), brown eyed, white, or as extremely handsome as I am (damn it, there is a picture in my profile!). Frankly, I don’t know which is more absurd. I love Spain, though, with a devotion that springs from having experimented it’s beauties (artistic and natural) it’s riches (economical, cultural and social) and also it’s miseries (few but existing) in all mentioned areas. It is a wondrous country, and you should come and see it for yourself.

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