Toledo is the most Spanish of towns. It was once the heart of the country, pulsating with the great rhythm of epic history. But its heart no longer beats.
Resting on steep granite hills above the deep Tajo valley stands the yellow-grey heap of houses as though rooted in the rocks. Two gigantic bridges span the river. Narrow alleys lead up hill and down dale; many-cornered and dark. The whole town seems in a fighting mood. Huge gateways and towers, the houses fort-like, the doors studded with heavy nails. Indeed, there is hardly a town that has seen so many battles rounds its walls. Spain’s history has passed over it with heavy steps. And to-day? Rent walls, ruin and silence: the town the accumulated wreckage of a thousand years ([139]-[148]).
Segovia, Toledo’s sister city is situated similarly on rocks arising abruptly from the plain. It is dominated by a great cathedral tower, and guarded by the well-proportioned Alcazar which stands forth like a fairy castle. A miraculous building, erected one would say to brave eternity in the days when Christ was born. But otherwise Segovia is different to Toledo. It is the Nuremberg of Spain, gay in its leafy setting ([157]-[164]).
There are other brave old companions-in-arms of these two veterans, dating from ancient war days: circumvallated Avila ([165]-[169]), Cuenca and Albarracin with their swallow-nest houses clinging to lofty crags ([120], [121], [192-194]), Daroca protected by two mountains over which the whole of the battlemented walls have climbed ([195]-[197]), Alquezar in the Pyrenees, the northern outpost of the Moors in Spain ([210]-[212]), Sigüenza, Jerica, Trujillo, Caceres, Niebla, Carmona, Martos, Antequera, and many bold castillos.
Ronda is the most boldly situated town lying on a high plateau encircled by a wide mountain arena ([62], [63]). Running through the rocky plateau is a huge crevice which looks as though it had been split in rage by the mighty fists of giants.
The streams thunder down in all their wild force over the boulders, hammer threateningly against the rocky walls, break into scintillating spray, rush round in whirlpools, and hurry on their course. And in close proximity to all this turmoil, the rocky walls stand unshaken in their immobility against the sky-line, an emblem of eternity cast in stone by the hand of God. The rainbow in the spray has been copied by man in the shape of a bridge high over the abyss joining the rocky heights upon which the town stands.
Let us pass from these stubborn old battle towns to a more smiling scene: San Sebastian ([286]-[290]) known throughout the world for its incomparably beautiful situation on the sea. The view from Monte Ulia, a mountain guarding the entrance to this paradise, is wonderful beyond words. Here nature has modelled and painted a masterpiece. The sea hugs the land in two gracefully curved bays and catches the beauties of the town in the reflection of its waters.
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Cave-dwellings and the simple life.—This time I decided to leave the destination of my wanderings to chance. I could have chosen no better guide. I set out long before the dew was dry, or the sun had risen. The palm trees were just beginning to shake themselves in the early breeze when I approached a strange rocky landscape. Dark holes in the rock stared at me like dead eyes. But nevertheless life was hidden there. Human forms stepped out of the holes to greet the morn.
What I saw was a towering rock wall with hundreds of cave-dwellings next to each other and over each other. Some of them were even five storeys high and approached from the outside ([92]). Where the rocks were too steep, the approaches had been dug from the inside, and upper storeys created with outlook holes and loggias high up in the rocks. Tunnels had been cut in the soft stone to get from one rock valley to the other.