Spain [antikvár]

As a beginning to this brief account of the country we call Spain, I would like to propose a voyage to the reader. It is a simple voyage, within the reach of any motorist, and will allow him to appreciate more directly and without the need for long explanations the tremendously varied landscape of the Iberian Peninsula.Our point of departure will be the town of San Vicente de la Barquera in the province of Santander. The traveller may find it difficult to pull himself away from the many charms of this lovely fishing port: its sleepy streets, the small town square where branches of the trimmed plane trees-as in so many other cities and towns of the North-entwine and form a green roof, the beauty of the town church where a famous Inquisitor is buried, and the quality of the restaurants which serve fish brought in by the boats every afternoon to be sold at the public auction hall.From therefrom the edge of the sea, that ison a clear day we can see as far away as the Picos de Europa, covered with snow during the greater part of the year, and to all appearances an impassable barrier. As to its climate, this part of Cantabria has worse fame than what the facts actually show. It is true that many days begin rainy and overcast, but it is also true that the clouds that form at night along the mountain ridges slowly scatter as the day goes on, and the sun bursts through the bluish hue of the Cantabrian sky.Now wending through the town and up the steep road behindstopping to look at it again from the heights above, we drive west to Unquera where we turn off the road to Oviedo and begin the seemingly impossible adventure of penetrating the imposing rock wall facing us. A few kilometers further down, the car must make its way along the disquietingly narrow road to La Hermida.This is one of the most beautiful and most awesome spots in Spain, only comparable to the deep gorge of Trespaderne near the Cares River in Burgos or to the Chorro gorge in the province of Málaga which open up in the steep sierras of the Peninsula, although it is much longer than either of these. For 25 kilometers we pass between the canyon's rock walls, feeling our way around the curves and trusting the road as our Ariadne's thread to lead us through this labyrinth.Below, at the bed of the Deva River, the enormous rocks that fell from the cliffs and were hedged there by glaciers during the Quaternary Age: local legends tell us that they are tear drops of heroes and gjants. Small bridges conduct us at least four times over the river (a geological stone cutter that41