Our Latest Iberian Adventure

It was just a short time ago that we were strolling the holiday-festooned streets of Barcelona. Now, we’re back, less than four months later in a warmer Spain, trading Catalan for Castilian.

Joining us once again is our frequent traveling companion (and maternal stand-in), Peg Neeson.

This will be a return to a different kind of Grand Circle tour for us: one without a boat. The trip is entirely land-based, with us moving through five “hubs” (Madrid, Granada, Torremolinos, Seville & Lisbon) from which we will explore the surrounding areas during overnight stops in said locations. There’s even a day trip to Gibraltar, adding a third country to the mix. Excluding Madrid & Lisbon, the bulk of our travels will be in the Andalusia region of Spain along the Mediterranean coast–the Costa del Sol.

Here’s some historical stuff for context.

Madrid is Spain’s capital and largest city in population and area. Its supremacy was deliberate, at least from a Catalan point of view, as we learned during our recent BCN vacay. The calculated ascendence of Madrid was at the subordination of Barcelona, where expansion of the city and industry was denied by the central government (read: Franco) to reign in a formidable rival and political irritant.

Coastal southern Spain has had its own share of struggles. Once home to the power-over-the-peninsula, its importance declined with the expulsion of the ruling Moors. Its halcyon days in the rear view mirror, the largely agrarian area has become a Mecca (pun intended) for tourists seeking the diversity of assimilated cultures. And the roster of peoples that have left their stamp on Andalusia..nay, much of the Iberian peninsula…reads like a red carpet lineup of A-list players in the Mediterranean: Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals & Visigoths, Moors and Papists. But, if past experience holds true, the only still-existent physical evidence of these former inhabiteurs that we will come across will be of the Roman, Moorish and/or Christian ilk with the others relegated to footnotes in a tourist’s guidebook. Two important dates to know: 711 (the Moors arrive) and 1492 (the Moors skedaddle.) That’s almost 800 years of Muslim rule and catholic (small “c”) culture before the Castilian Reconquista and the rise of Catholic (big “C”) intolerance and oppression.

Portugal is an enigma for me. When I think of it, two things come to mind: vinho verde and Brazil. A bottle of ice cold vinho verde is a summer tradition. Regarding th’other? How’d such a small country end up with the such a large colony? I’ve also always wondered how this Western stretch of the Iberian peninsula retained its separate status as a kingdom with a Spanish Goliath blustering and brandishing its superior might right next door. I did learn recently that there are geographic features, rivers and mountain ranges, that create natural borders. But any historical animosities that may have existed between the two remain a mystery to me…at this writing. Hopefully, this trip (and the Internet) will enlighten me as we cross these physical and linguistic barriers.

Thus ends my pre-trip preface. “See” you on the other side of the Atlantic.