Travels through Ancient and Modern Spain

October 24, 2024

Travels through Ancient and Modern Spain – Part 1

We just got home from traveling two weeks abroad in Spain. Boy am I out of practice of the simple acts of cooking. I’ve forgotten how I make homemade macaroni and cheese from scratch, but finally figured it out, etc. Two weeks off kitchen duty—after having yummy delicious breakfasts made for us each morning at gorgeous hotels, well, I’m spoiled. And of course it takes our bodies several days to overcome the six hour time change. But it’s worth it. We waited some 48 years for this trip.

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Long long ago as I was wrapping up my sophomore year of college, I saw a notice on an Eastern Mennonite College bulletin board that piqued my interest. It offered information on spending a year studying abroad in Europe such as Germany, Spain, and France through Brethren Colleges Abroad.

The cost was little more than a typical year of college at that time ($2500), and my parents had already been around the world themselves on a six-week spin. I knew Daddy would be very supportive. I was excited. After all, I had spent a year in voluntary service in Eastern Kentucky and it had been an interesting (and wonderful) growing experience.

So in 1973, in spite of not knowing a single other person in the group (even though some were students at Bridgewater College about 10 miles south of my own college), I flew on my own from Indiana to New York City to meet up with the other students planning to study in Spain. We spent an evening getting to know what to expect, and flew to Madrid the next day.

My goal at the time: learn Spanish better, meet new people, have adventures, maybe figure out what occupation was calling me. 

In mid-October of this year, my husband and I boarded a United flight and again, not knowing a soul in the group we would be traveling with, got a two-week replay of life in Spain.

It was Spain on steroids—a huge airport at Madrid, and before we landed, miles of watching Spaniards driving to their jobs in the early morning darkness from way out in the countryside. It was almost like watching the commuter traffic flow into the Washington D.C. area where two of our daughters and four of our grandchildren live. (While Saudi Arabia airports win the “largest airports in the world” prize, Madrid’s airport had mushroomed in the 48 years since I’d landed there as a very green novice in Europe. Dubbed “Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport,” the 7,500 acres makes it the second-largest airport in Europe by physical size, right behind Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport.) It also has the privilege of being located pretty much in the center of Spain which makes it great for flying to other locations. To compare, Texas has 678,052 square miles (biggest state after Alaska) and Spain has 505,370 square miles.

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Most of my readers here are people of faith, mostly Christian.

How amazing it was to go back centuries, to just a couple hundred years after the time that Jesus walked on earth, and to see with our own eyes aqueducts, palaces, basilicas, cathedrals, chapels and majestic gardens (The Alhambra) that were begun way back when. I was impressed with the fact that Muslims and Christians could share the same cathedral space, taking turns. Jewish quarters going back centuries were acceptable neighborhoods close to cathedrals.

In the city of Valencia, in one of the cathedrals we toured, I picked up a small newsletter in Spanish and (partly in French) that described the activities of that group. For instance, it gave news of an international youth gathering in Seoul, Korea, coming up in 2027 for interested teens and sponsors or escorts. It showed the logo for the event—just like an event for Presbyterians or Mennonites or whatever. I was surprised and impressed. The news sheet described long ago Saints, such as one called St. Virginia Centurione, who lived from 1587-1651. That was when some of the Catholic church was undergoing reform, etc. The saint’s story included a scripture passage from 1 John 3:18, “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”

Wow: something that we all need to take to heart in this time of anguish and troubles.

(For more on the differences between basilicas, cathedrals and the like, check this out. For more on other reformers of the time check out a little of my religious upbringing.)

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The trip my husband and I were fortunate to take covered numerous cities and many miles of Spanish countryside, some pleasantly green but much of it drab and dusty brown. There were many miles to walk in some cities and towns, such as Toledo and Segovia, two of my favorite villages where ancient aqueducts still hold a trickle of water! More coming in the next few weeks on my blog.

The trip was planned through Charlie Turner’s Turner Travel Agency here in Harrisonburg, Va., with arrangements made through Globus Vacations.