If any one country captures and retains a living history of turmoil, feudal and theocratic leadership, civil wars, dictatorship, nation-building and emergence as a modern nation state, with her past historical evidence intact, that nation would be España, or Spain as it is known in the English speaking world.
Anecdotal accounts of the story of Spain and her people prompted my interest in further researching the Iberian Peninsula and the deeper I dug in, the more intriguing I found the country and finally settled on a decision to visit. I spent the spring of 2009 criss-crossing Spain from the midpoint, in Madrid right down to the Mediterranean shores. I loved the trip so much that within six months in the fall I went back for another month-long visit. I will chronicle some of the interesting places and encounters during my trip in this short series about this wonderful country.
As you probably know, Spain is located in southwestern Europe and shares the Iberian Peninsula with the country of Portugal. It is like all of Western Europe, a democratic country but also has a constitutional monarch, King Juan Carlos 1. It has a population of about 46 million. The country is divided into 17 Autonomous Communities, roughly equivalent of US states. Some of the autonomous communities are further subdivided into provinces and down to the local government level.
The present day Spain was part of the Roman Empire called Hispania but during the Middle Ages, it came under Germanic Kingdom rules and quickly displaced by the Visigoths, which in turn got conquered by Moslem rulers comprising North African Moors and some Arabs from the Middle East in the year 711. Subsequently the Christian kingdoms re-conquered the various regions from the Moslem caliphates beginning from the north of Spain southwards. Granada, the last Moslem held region fell in 1492 under the rule of catholic monarchs, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. It was the same year that Christopher Columbus’ expedition funded by Queen Isabella reached America, which precipitated a Spanish world empire. The rest is history.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Spring Sojourn in Spain: The Old, the New and My Curious Mind
If any one country captures and retains a living history of turmoil, feudal and theocratic leadership, civil wars, dictatorship, nation-building and emergence as a modern nation state, with her past historical evidence intact, that nation would be España, or Spain as it is known in the English speaking world.
Anecdotal accounts of the story of Spain and her people prompted my interest in further researching the Iberian Peninsula and the deeper I dug in, the more intriguing I found the country and finally settled on a decision to visit. I spent the spring of 2009 criss-crossing Spain from the midpoint, in Madrid right down to the Mediterranean shores. I loved the trip so much that within six months in the fall I went back for another month-long visit. I will chronicle some of the interesting places and encounters during my trip in this short series about this wonderful country.
As you probably know, Spain is located in southwestern Europe and shares the Iberian Peninsula with the country of Portugal. It is like all of Western Europe, a democratic country but also has a constitutional monarch, King Juan Carlos 1. It has a population of about 46 million. The country is divided into 17 Autonomous Communities, roughly equivalent of US states. Some of the autonomous communities are further subdivided into provinces and down to the local government level.
The present day Spain was part of the Roman Empire called Hispania but during the Middle Ages, it came under Germanic Kingdom rules and quickly displaced by the Visigoths, which in turn got conquered by Moslem rulers comprising North African Moors and some Arabs from the Middle East in the year 711. Subsequently the Christian kingdoms re-conquered the various regions from the Moslem caliphates beginning from the north of Spain southwards. Granada, the last Moslem held region fell in 1492 under the rule of catholic monarchs, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. It was the same year that Christopher Columbus’ expedition funded by Queen Isabella reached America, which precipitated a Spanish world empire. The rest is history.
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