Spain will give you reasons for coming back

“If you had to be reborn anywhere in the world as a person with artistic talent and creativity, 

you would want to be Don Quixote”

“In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind...” was the place where  the famous writer Miguel de Cervantes, the creator of “Don Quixote”, was born. In this Southern country, where the sun shines 13 months a year, is where the film director Pedro Almodóvar became recognized to capture Spanish cinema in a so peculiar way.

There was also another story, as beautiful as these ones, about an American guy and a Spanish girl who met one by chance in the North of Spain, specifically in Santander. She was from Alicante and went there for an English course. He was the English professor and would live there for a while. Something special happened that day in the North of Spain, but it was too difficult to bet for it. There were many obstacles between them, however, they both fall in love and they decide to be two weeks together travelling around the country that made them fall in love.

Santander 

Santander

 They both had only a week together, what they spent it enjoying the beauty of Santander, its green cliffs next to the Bay of Biscay and the Royal Palace of La Magdalena, once the residence of Alfonso XIII, King of Spain from 1886 until 1941. After it, She had to go back to her city, in the south east of Spain, and they might not see each other again. However, the week after that, it was the 20th of June when the main festivity in Alicante begins, the hogueras. He had never heard about a tradition where people build a monument and during four days there are fireworks and firecrackers in the street, along with music and parades, so he had an excuse to go there and visit her. They stayed together until the 24th of June, when the monument is set on fire on the night of San Juan.

Nevertheless, he had to move to work in Cuenca, in Castile-La Mancha, closer to Alicante. Cuenca, a city on the inner plateau of Spain where the hanging houses are, the only remaining samples of this type of building. He promised her that if she went to Cuenca to visit him, he would show her on of the oldest and the most beautiful villages in Spain, Albarracín, in the province of Teruel, part of the autonomous community of Aragon. He took her hiking and climbing on the mountains until the birth of the Tagus River in the Sierra de Albarracin.


Something else was born there, on the banks of the river Tagus, but they only had two weeks left before he went back to the States. So, why not steal the time and create a secret between she, he and Spain. The next day, they were driving aimlessly, only with a map of Spain and some recommendations of places to visit.

San Sebastián

Zaragoza

Spain, a country to discover together

After a couple of hours driving, they stopped in Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon. They had something to eat in the Pillar square, admiring the Pillar´s church on the banks of the river Ebro. Then, they continued their trip to Pamplona, capital city of Navarre, where at that time of the year were the San Fermines or bull running festivity of the city. The day after, they start driving to the Basque country, specifically to San Sebastian, city that will be the European Capital of Culture in 2016 (along with Wrocław in Poland).

For the next destination, they wanted to explore the interior of Castile- Leon, its meadows, its castles and, of course, Burgos and Salamanca´s cathedrals. After this walk through history, there was one more stop before the end of the trip; Segovia. There, they got into the history of the Catholic kings of Spain with the famous Alcázar, they ate its main dish of pork, cheese and cured sausages and enjoyed its wine, before arriving to the airport, at the capital of the country, that would keep them apart.

Segovia

Salamanca

After this short ten days, they arrived to Madrid where their destinies would be separated. But, there were still some hours left, so they decided to go to the centre of the city and walk on the Retiro park and perhaps see the Prado museum. But then, it was time for him to leave. To leave the country he loves, and the woman with whom he shared and discovered it. She left him in the airport and started driving back to Alicante and her Mediterranean sea, always remanding those cities, those secret places on Spain that brought them together the love.

They know there are many beautiful places in Spain, but they were more than that, they were special cities to them, because now those places were theirs. This romance between three is still as alive as the first day, and every now and then he went back to Spain, to explore with her these exclusive and beautiful places of the warm southern European country. And every time, in a new city around Spain, he fell in love again to this country, and its woman.

Alicante

Alicante provincia

Opportunities behind adversities
This was a true story that at the beginning no one invested a penny on it. Nobody thought it was worthy, “to complicate it”, they said, “to many problems”, or “to weak to resist the circumstances”... That was what people were saying when they said they wanted to be together. What would happen with the distance, and the age difference? But the couple did not care, because they knew that they wanted to be together and they believe Spain will bring them what they needed. Maybe, they will need some time to be together but, as they always say, if there is a will, there is a way.

Maybe this can also be applied to other areas, as the finances. Give it some time, believe on it, and Spain will recover. Perhaps, it also needs somebody else who loves it too, and build a new momentum with it...