SPAIN AND GIBRALTAR
TOLEDO CATHEDRAL
ROYAL PALACE, MADRID
ALCÁZAR AT SEVILLE
SEVILLE CATHEDRAL
THE ALHAMBRA, GRANADA
GIBRALTAR
A Trip Around the World with
DWIGHT L. ELMENDORF, Lecturer and Traveler
Gone is the ancient glory of Spain. To the visitor it appeals chiefly as a country of a splendid past. This is not true, of course, of some of the more populous localities. Barcelona is full of life and commercially enterprising, and Madrid is full of activity and is a natural center of interest as the capital of the nation. But many of the cities and towns of Spain attract chiefly as interesting and picturesque survivals. They breathe the atmosphere of a former age. We feel the influence of it wherever we turn. Spain is not much traveled by tourists. More would go perhaps if they realized what splendid scenery was there, and how rich in historic and romantic associations the country was.
Since the days of the first inhabitants, the Iberians, and beginning with the Celts who crossed the Pyrenees some five hundred years B. C., Spain has been invaded by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals and Visigoths, Arabs and Moors, and each of these races has left evidences of its dominion, in monuments of one kind or another, in architectural forms, in roads and buildings, and in the language and customs of communities. The interesting Basque people of the northern provinces of Spain are declared by students of history to be almost unmixed descendants of the original Iberians.
GENERAL VIEW OF TOLEDO
Toledo is one of the most ancient cities in Spain. It was at its zenith under the Moors. Later it became the residence of the kings of Castile.