If in every dream the dreamer is the author of the fable that he lives while he sleeps, in every journey the traveller interacts with his own emotions, the landscape, some passengers and with cities that evoke events and personalities of the past that enrich his memory and the pleasure of travelling.
In my case, traveling through Spain, land of my father, grandparents, siblings, and wife; it is more than just a way of doing provincial tourism, I’m entering an amphitheater of dreams with geography as auditorium, the train or bus as a form of set design, and the people traveling or transiting are the authors.
The name Sagunto takes us back to Hannibal’s audacity, the Cartaginian General that turned the ancient Iberia in an operations base to dominate the Mediterranean and left Sagunto to occupy Rome, whose inhabitants persecuted the Carthaginians and settled in the Iberian peninsula.
Turned into a Roman province like the neighboring Tarragona, Sagunto was more important than Valencia, the current provincial and autonomous capital of which it was subject. Besides the huge Roman castle by the railroad tracks, other monuments recall events and legends that inscribe Sagunto into Spanish history, among this the military uprising of General Arsenio Martinez Campos, considered “the restorer of Spanish monarchy” and “Cuba’s pacifier,” in 1875 and 1878 respectively.
As Sagunto to Zaragoza is almost 180 miles, the traveler crosses the villages that look like picture postcards and is engrossed in orange groves, vineyards, olive trees, pines, poplars, leafless phantasmagoric trees, windmills in the mountains and tunnels that link fields, farmhouses and industrial silos that precede cities with stops. Segorbe, Jérica, Barracas, Sarrión, the celebrated Teruel — Mozarabic modernist capital of ham — Monreal del Campo, Caminreal, Calamocha, Cariñena and others that weave a map of movement adorned at times with snow.
Zaragoza, the fifth largest city in Spain after Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Sevilla, impresses the newcomer with its gigantic modern railway and bus station. Upon leaving we expect the magical encounter with the banks of the Ebro, fertilized in January by the abundance of rain that threatens to overwhelm the bridges.
The Ebro valley with its desert landscape and cold winds in the urban layout of the ancient kingdom of Aragon, natural scenario of Iberian people, Celts, Romans, Goths and Arabs. Around the current Zaragoza — urban and administrative center of the autonomous community of Aragon — are circled dozens of villages in two provincial capitals: Teruel and Huesca. A short distance away are Navarre and France in the Pyrenees and the cities of Castilla la Mancha, Catalonia and Castellon.
When touring Zaragoza we are amazed by the beauty of the Plaza and the Basilica of Pilar, La Seo Cathedral, the Roman stone bridge, the iron bridge of the nineteenth century, the Aljafería — the Moorish palace of joy — as well as the Plaza of the Bulls, the Imprente Blasca and statues of transcendent characters like General Parafox, the heroine Agustina de Aragon, the painter Goya, the writer Baltasar Gracian, Dr. Ramon y Cajal,the filmmaker Luis Buñuel and the Cuban intellectual and patriot José Martí, who lived and studied in the city of Zaragoza.
31 January 2013
