Spanish Untour, summer of 1999
by Audrey Riley, Santa Cruz, CA
What shall we do today?... That question is the beauty of our Untour program. The "on-site guide" had a suggestion that mentioned two very old towns not too far north of our “home”. So one day we packed a snack, took some liquid and set out. We drove through an area so rugged that there were no olive trees, just crags.
We passed several towns of white buildings, built on hills (for better defense in olden days). We got confused. Although we knew the direction we should be going, the correct road was not always obvious because of the roundabouts and mountainous terrain. So we guessed, not always correctly.
We asked locals walking along the road. The locals didn't know the number of the road or the name of the street. They just knew the way to where wanted to go, which may or may not have been our chosen path. But they were all gracious and delighted to help us. The countryside and villages were so interesting! We really didn't mind not knowing just where we were.
In the all-white villages, the streets were very narrow (most not wide enough to park cars). The buildings all shared a common wall with their neighbor. Most houses had only a double ornate wooden door opening onto the street. A peek into the occasional open door revealed a tiled entry and a second, more ornate door. If there was a window (which was rare), it was covered with a wrought-iron grill on the outside, curtains on the inside and sometimes opaque glass in between. Window sills of wrought-iron and. marble appeared to be washed daily.
The countryside was very steep, yet every available space was filled with olive trees except the very tops of the ridges, which appeared to be solid rock. One afternoon, we went for a walk through the olive groves near our house. The wild grape hyacinths and irises were just beginning to bloom. Some of the olive trees were 500 years old. They had thick massive trunks and roots protruding above the ground.
One Sunday outing took us twenty-five miles to two Renaissance towns, Ubeda and Baeza, each enriched by new world gold. The church in one, built in 1634, had carved stone gargoyles. Both were located on an important ancient trade route used by the Carthaginians, Romans and all others. In this area, there were olive trees as far as the eye could see.
On another day, we visited Grenada and the Alhambra. Our English headset tour was done using the words of Washington Irving, who lived here for a while. We entered. Five hours later, we emerged! Tired! Overstimulated! And all agree it was the experience of a lifetime. Also, it is impossible to describe—get a picture book in the library to see it!
Two weeks had soon passed, and it was time for us to leave. What a shock! Spain wasn’t at all what I expected. I suppose way back in grade school a few hours may have been spent on the Iberian Peninsula. But sixty years is a long time ago, and the interpretation of “facts” and history have changed since then. The American and world history classes didn’t spend much time on Spain either. Since history is written from the viewpoint of the winner, my impressions of Spain had been vague and, to some extent, negative.
But I now appreciate the depth of Spanish history, the breadth of the culture and the beauty of the country!