The Beauty of Spain: Reflections on Travel and Life

Travel is a blend of romance, culture, and a much-needed break from the daily routine. It’s a way to see and feel a totally different scene. Europe is a world apart from my home in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, a pleasant but homogeneous place for the most part.

That’s why I travel. To experience the diversity, the complexity, and to remember why narrow-mindedness equals ignorance. I just returned from Spain. Although I had visited Barcelona years ago, I had never been to Madrid and the towns and cities in Andalusia.

Spain meant escaping an endless winter of frigid temperatures and snow as hard as concrete. Olive trees and buttercups awaited. Sunshine glinted off burnt orange tile roofs. There was rain and fog at the Alhambra in Granada, which means “pomegranate.” After the rain moved away, a flamenco dance of Solea, which expresses the heartbreak of lost love and the portrayal of grief. And the Alhambra lit at night against a mountainside.

In Cordoba, a mosque with soaring sandstone and brick arches was transformed into a Christian cathedral in years so long ago, a testament of how short your journey is. The beauty of the art was appreciated and preserved by people of a different religion. Some things are universal and transcend belief.

I travel because a writer isn’t a writer unless she takes a risk and transports herself to something new as a path to her muse.

Spain is the Prado—a museum on par with the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and the Louvre in Paris, both of which I’ve visited. You can never see too many master works of art. There before me was Goya’s Crucified Christ hanging on the Cross in ghostly whites and grays.

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This is the first day of Lent. We Christians are taught that the next 40 days mirror Jesus’ wandering in the wilderness. We seek answers. Why the pain? We accept how little control we have over people and situations.

But, in the end, Easter awaits.

Travel is about being alone with your thoughts. Where does my life go from here? How is this amazing and incredible beauty all around me possible? The silver-white reflections from the Atlantic Ocean shimmer off the white buildings and narrow alleyways in Cadiz, a historic port in southwestern Spain nicknamed the “Little Silver Cup.” It was there that I ordered a plate of calamari. I couldn’t finish it. As I got up to leave, a woman from Africa, selling cheap gold and beaded bracelets to tourists, asked if she could have it. She gently took a napkin and wrapped the calamari in it. These are the moments to ask, why her? Why am I so lucky?

There are the people you meet and share a glass of wine with at the end of the day. The widows on my tour, the divorced, and those living in chronic pain —all of us searching for beauty. A moment to reflect.

Travel is a reality that defies definition.

There is the locally aged sherry, sweet to the taste, the tapas of raw tuna drizzled with balsamic dressing, and the sliced tomatoes swimming in honey and olive oil. What did I do to deserve this?

In the end, when you arrive home, weary but so very much revived, the memories of the beauty and the romance linger. They are yours to hold forever.