Before I set forth on a detailed discourse of our journey, let me indulge in a few remarks on Spanish scenery and Spanish traveling. Whatever you might have pictured as Spanish (or Andalucian, for it is the Andalucian area in the south that is truly distinctively Spanish), for the greater part the land is silent and lonesome and it is stern, melancholy, with rugged mountains and few plains destitute of natural foliage. Farm workers can frequently be found giving hand labor to the unmerciful and unyielding soil.
In these provinces one traverses tracts of orange treed orchards and olive groves, forced upon elsewise naked and sunburnt lands. And among the distant mountains, on a steep hill or rugged crag where once a major route did pass, one sees a "white village" (made so by frequent whitewash painting of the cemented exterior of the row upon row of attached homes and shops), Here to imagine a place with smoldering battlements where now only ruined watchtowers stand, a strong hold in old times against civil war or Moorish inroads, or protection from the intrusions of roving freeloaders.
Although a great part of Andalucia is deficient in the garnitures of fields and forests, its scenery more than compensates for it. The land is mostly a product of its people who are proud, friendly, and frugal, with an appearance of health and vigor. It would not seem so that one would expect the Spaniard to be as trim and fit as we see for we could not stroll the roads without ceaselessly spotting another restaurant or Tapa bar.
In traversing these lofty Sierras, we would be obliged to coax our rented car up and down the steep paths artfully carved around and sometimes within the mountains jagged stone. Without warning the guard rails that protected us from the gulfs below, would disappear producing only fears of a plunge down steep, dark and dangerous glens. In ranging over these boundless wastes, the eye catches sight, here and there, of a straggling herd of goats attended by a lonely herdsman, or an occasional mule or horse meandering upon a mountain ledge, bringing its master to a home where no mans mechanical instrument has found the way.
Were it the purpose of this writing, I could fill the web with the incidents and scenes of our rambling expedition, but other themes invite me. Journeying in this manner, we emerged from the skies and landed upon the beautiful city of Seville (Sevilla) and thereto did we set upon our quest for the "Pension" (family hotel) that our Internet friends had recommended.
