The story of Spain has all the thrills, tragedy, madness and inspiration of a Shakespeare (or Cervantes) drama — and they’re true. And, if you know where to look, you can read this history in Spain’s great buildings. For a quick “Cliff’s Notes” sampling, let’s pay a visit to four great sights: Sevilla’s cathedral and Alcázar, the El Escorial palace outside of Madrid, and Gaudí’s Parc Güel in Barcelona.

Spain’s history is dominated by 700 years of pushing the Muslim Moors (who invaded in 711, taking over all of Iberia) back into Africa. Throughout Iberia, it seems every old church was built upon a mosque. There is no bolder example of this than Sevilla’s immense cathedral. I can imagine the bloody fighting: Muslim against Christian. Finally, with the battle over — Christians standing among bloody bodies of defeated Moors — the victors looked at the huge mosque (which was built centuries earlier upon a Visagothic church) and declared, “We’ll tear this down and build a cathedral…so big, people in the future will look at it and declare us madmen.” Only the minaret was kept, refashioned into a bell tower with huge lettering on top declaring, “This is stronger now, made in the name of God.” And beside it looms the biggest Gothic church in the world. Look around and you are likely to think… madmen!

It’s no coincidence that 1492 is a date famous for two events: the final expulsion of the Moors, and Columbus’ “discovery” of America. It’s as if the momentum of the successful reconquista propelled Spaniards into the Western hemisphere as conquistadores. This no-holds-barred mix of the world’s most motivated explorers, warriors, shipbuilders, fortune-hunters, politicians and evangelists planted Spain’s flag and religion around the globe — enabling Spain to beat England to the claim that the sun never set on its empire.

Across the square from Sevilla’s sprawling cathedral is its sprawling Alcázar palace, a Christian palace built in a Moorish style. As Christians reconquered Iberia, many Muslim artists and architects stayed, giving the new society the Mudejar style. (Mudejar means, literally, “those who stayed.”)

The Alcázar feels like an Arabian Nights fairy-tale: finely etched domes, lacy arcades, keyhole arches, and comfy courtyards. At its heart lies the elegantly proportioned 14th century Court of the Maidens. Here the designers created an ingenious micro-climate: water, plants, pottery, thick walls, and darkness…all to be cool. It’s a fine example of this Mudejar style. While the décor is Moorish or Arabic in style, you’ll see depictions of peacocks, animals, and kings (which you wouldn’t find in true Muslim décor). The walls are ornamented with a stylized Arabic script. In older Moorish buildings, such as Granada’s Alhambra, this script creates a visual chant of Koranic verses. But in this Christian palace, the Arabic script relates New Testament verses and propaganda phrases, such as “dedicated to the magnificent Sultan Peter — thanks to God!”

Christopher Columbus is big in Spain, especially in Sevilla’s Alcázar. Here, as Queen Isabel debriefed Columbus after his New World discoveries, she realized this could be very big business. In 1503, she created a new palace wing to administer Spain’s New World adventures. In it you’ll find the Chapel Santa Maria de la Buenas Aires (St. Mary of the Fair Winds — or, as naughty Spanish boys say today, “of the good farts”). The Virgin of the Fair Winds was the patron saint of navigators and a favorite of Columbus.

America was not the only thing being discovered as the 15th century rumbled into the 16th. In the eyes of traditionalists, a dangerous new generation of humanists and Renaissance thinkers seemed to revel in heresy (they not only believed the world was round, but that it was far from the center of the universe). It was also the generation which broke the Roman Catholic’s monopoly on Christianity in Western Europe. After a long religious war, the continent split: half became Protestant and half remained Catholic. Each half believed the other was in Satan’s grip. Spain, leading those who remained loyal to Rome, spearheaded the Counter-Reformation (with Europe’s mightiest army supplemented by missionaries, inquisitors and future saints) to protect and recruit as many souls as possible for its righteous Catholic cause.
El Escorial Palace
It’s in the architecture: By the time El Escorial was built, Spain’s giddy optimism over global exploration had given way to the grim reality of waging a Counter-Reformation war against Satan and his allies.

A 30-mile side-trip from Madrid takes you to the imposing palace of this age, El Escorial. The stern Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial is a complete turnabout from the elegant (even sensual) Alcázar. Instead, it exudes a sobering mix of power and no-nonsense religion. This 16th century combo palace/monastery gives us a better feel for the Counter-Reformation and the Inquisition than any other building. Built at a time when Catholic Spain felt threatened by Protestant heretics, its construction dominated the Spanish economy for a generation (1563-1584). Because of this bully in the national budget, Spain has almost nothing else to show from this most powerful period of her history.

The giant, gloomy building made of gray-black stone looks more like a prison than a palace. About 650 feet long and 500 feet wide, it has 2,600 windows, 1,200 doors, more than 100 miles of passages, and 1,600 overwhelmed tourists. Four hundred years ago, the enigmatic, introverted, and extremely Catholic King Philip II ruled his empire and directed the Inquisition from here, surrounded by plain white walls, well-scrubbed floors and austere furnishings. Today it’s a time capsule of Spain’s maturing “Golden Age,” packed with history, art, and Inquisition ghosts.

El Escorial was conceived by Phillip II as a multi-purpose complex, including: a grand mausoleum for Spain’s royal family; a monastery for lots of prayer for the royal souls; a small palace to provide a kind of Camp David for Spain’s royalty; and a school to embrace humanism in a “boundaried” way that also promoted the Catholic faith. In the immense library it’s clear: education was a priority for the Spanish royalty. As you leave, look back above the door. The plaque warns “Excomunion…” (you’ll be excommunicated if you take a book without checking it out properly). Who needs late fees when you hold the keys to hell?

As we move ahead in time, much of Spain’s more modern architecture feels like a rehash of its past. But Barcelona is a lively exception. As Europe leapt from the 19th century into the 20th, it celebrated a rising standard of living and nearly a century without a major war. Future revolutions were in their early, starry-eyed-dreamer stages. Impressionists came out of their studios to paint in the gardens, and Art Nouveau architects forced hard steel and concrete into softer organic shapes. Barcelona’s answer to Art Nouveau was Modernisme, and its genius was Antonio Gaudí.

To appreciate Gaudí’s work you need to understand it. For instance, his colorful, curvy Parc Güell overlooking Barcelona was a place I never liked — until a visit with a local guide. Rather than the park it is today, Gaudí originally intended this garden to be a 60-residence housing project — a kind of gated community. As a high-income housing development, it flopped. As a park, it’s a delight for local families. And like the Sagrada Família church in the distance, it offers travelers a fascinating peek into the eccentric personality of the architect and his times.

Imagine if this gated community was filled with Barcelona’s wealthy, and you lived there. Stepping past fancy gatehouses, you’d walk by Gaudí’s wrought iron gas lamps (his dad was a blacksmith and he always enjoyed this medium). Then you’d climb the grand stairway past the ceramic dragon fountain. At the top you’d drop by the Hall of 100 Columns, a produce market for the neighborhood’s 60 mansions. These fun columns, each different (made from concrete and rebar, topped with colorful ceramics, and studded with broken bottles and bric-a-brac), add to the market’s vitality. After shopping, you’d continue up, glancing down along the playful “pathway of columns” that support a long arcade. Gaudí drew his inspiration from nature, and these arc like a surfer’s perfect “tube.” At the top of the terrace, you’d relax on a colorful bench (designed to fit your body ergonomically) and enjoy one of Barcelona’s best views.

A hundred years ago, Gaudí’s shiny new Parc Güell was out in the sticks — too far from Barcelona’s cultural scene — and it failed after just two homes were constructed. Considering that the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods surround the park today, it seems Gaudí’s gated community brainstorm was just a century ahead of its time.

The Royal Pantheon of Spain’s El Escorial Palace, an hour northwest of Madrid, is the gilded resting place of 26 kings and queens…four centuries’ worth of Spanish monarchy. All the kings are included — but only those queens who became mothers of kings.

There is a post-mortem filing system at work here. The first and greatest, Charles V and his Queen Isabella, flank the altar on the top shelf. Her son, Philip II, rests below Charles and opposite to (only) one of Phillip’s four wives, and so on. There is a waiting process, too. Before a royal corpse can rest in this room, it needs to decompose for several decades. The three empty niches are already booked. The bones of Juan Carlos’ grandparents, Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenia (who died in 1941 and 1964, respectively), are ready to be moved in, but the staff can’t explain why they haven’t been transferred yet. Juan Carlos’ father, Don Juan (who died in 1993), is also on the wait list…controversially. Technically, he was never crowned king of Spain — Franco took control of Spain before Don Juan could ascend to the throne, and he was passed over for the job when Franco reinstituted the monarchy. Juan Carlos’ mother is the most recent guest in the rotting room. But where does that leave Juan Carlos and Sofía? This hotel is todo completo.

The next rooms are filled with the tombs of lesser royals: Each bears that person’s name (in Latin), relationship to the king, and slogan or epitaph. They lead to the wedding-cake Pantheon of Royal Children (Panteón de los Infantes) that holds the remains of various royal children who died before the age of seven (and their first Communion).

The paintings which line El Escorial’s walls provide an instructive peek at the consequences of inbreeding among royals — a common problem throughout Europe in those days. The Spanish emperor Charles V was the most powerful man in Europe. His illegitimate son was famous for his good looks, thanks to a little fresh blood. Many other portraits show the unhappy effects of mixing blue blood with more of the same blue blood. When one king married his niece, the result was Charles II (1665-1700). His severe underbite (an inbred royal family trait) was the least of his problems. An epileptic before that disease was understood, poor “Charles the Mad” would be the last of the Spanish Habsburgs. He died without an heir 1700, ushering in the continent-wide War of the Spanish Succession, and the dismantling of Spain’s empire.

Sevilla’s Holy Week (Semana Santa) celebrations are Spain’s grandest. During the week leading up to Easter, the city is packed with pilgrims witnessing 50 processions carrying about 100 religious floats. Get a feel for this event by visiting Basílica de la Macarena (built in 1947) to see the two most impressive floats and the darling of Holy Week, the Weeping Virgin (Virgen de la Macarena, a.k.a. La Esperanza).

Grab a pew and study Mary, complete with crystal teardrops. She’s like a 17th-century doll with human hair and articulated arms, and even dressed with underclothes. Her beautiful expression — halfway between smiling and crying — is moving, in a Baroque way. Her weeping can be contagious; look around you. Filling a side chapel (on left) is the Christ of the Sentence (from 1654), showing Jesus the day he was condemned.

The two most important floats of the Holy Week parades — the floats that Mary and Jesus ride every Good Friday — are parked behind the altar (through the door left of the altar, museum ticket required).

The three-ton float that carries Jesus is slathered in gold leaf, and shows a commotion of figures acting out the sentencing of Christ (who’s placed in the front of this crowd). Pontius Pilate is about to wash his hands. Pilate’s wife cries as a man reads the death sentence. While pious Sevillan women wail in the streets, relays of 48 men carry this — only their feet showing under the drapes — as they shuffle through the streets from midnight to 14:00 every Good Friday. (The photo on the wall behind Pilate shows the float–with the bound “Christ of the Sentence” in place — pulling out of the church on Good Friday in 1986.) Shuffle upstairs for another perspective.
A Spanish soap star

La Esperanza follows the Sentencing of Christ in the procession. Mary’s smaller (1.5-ton) float, in the next room, seems all silver and candles — “strong enough to support the roof but tender enough to quiver in the soft night breeze.” Mary has a wardrobe of three huge mantles (each displayed here) worn in successive years. The big green one is from 1900. Her six-pound gold crown/halo (in a glass case in the wall) is from 1913. This float has a mesmerizing effect on the local crowds. They line up for hours, clapping, weeping, and throwing roses as it slowly works its way through the city. My Sevillan friend explained, “She knows all the problems of Sevilla and its people. We’ve been confiding in her for centuries. To us she is hope. That’s her name — Esperanza.”

Before leaving, find the case of matador outfits (also upstairs) given to the church over the years by bullfighters in thanks for the protection they feel they received from La Macarena. Considered the protector of bullfighters, she’s big in bullring chapels. In 1912 the bullfighter José Ortega, hoping for protection, gave her the five emerald brooches she wears. It worked for eight years…until he was gored to death in the ring. (This was such a big deal that La Macarena was dressed in black - the only time that has happened.)

Outside, notice the best surviving bit of Sevilla’s old walls. Originally Roman, what remains today is 12th-century Moorish, a reminder that for centuries Sevilla was the capital of the Moorish kingdom in Iberia. And yes, it’s from this city that a local dance band (Los del Río) changed the world by giving us “The Macarena.”

El Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route in the north of Spain, is your answer for an adventure-packed vacation full of undiscovered Back Door sights. I completed the “Way of St. James” (as coined by English guidebooks) from the traditional beginning point in the Spanish-French border town of Roncesvalles, to the final destination of Santiago de Compostela in the Galician province of northwestern Spain. Two friends of mine and I packed our rucksacks (lightly) and completed the 465 miles in 28 days.

It sounds like an overwhelming physical undertaking, but we were by no means trained athletes or overenthusiastic adventurers. We were looking for something different, a way to experience Spain, not just visit it, and what we received was an experience of a lifetime which gave us just enough physical and mental challenge to make the trip seem like an incredible achievement.

We walked the 465 miles, but encountered many cyclists, joggers and motor vehicles following the same route. We averaged 9 to 12 miles a day and spent the night in the modern refugios, which charge a very minimal fee — if any. Most days we began walking around 6:00 am and reached our destination by 1:00 pm that day, just in time for a menu de peregrino (pilgrim lunch) at the local bar.

What I enjoyed was the feeling of being a world trekker. We were celebrities in most small towns, and many locals took special care of us in many small towns.

The gastronomic differences we encountered each day were also part of the adventure. A highlight was the pulpo (octopus) festival in Protomarin, Spain.

Architecture and history lovers will delight over the many different styles of churches and cathedrals we literally walked by. The Camino was the lifeline of northern Spain during the reign of the Moors for over 700 years. And a very strong religious or spiritual experience is almost unavoidable. The camaraderie with complete strangers, and your closeness to history as you walk a 1000-year-old route, clears your mind and makes you more aware of your surroundings.

Pilgrims comes in many shapes and sizes. We met families, individuals and groups of people from all over the world — Germans, French, Brazilians (inspired by a book by a famous Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho), and many Kiwis from New Zealand.

There are no rules associated with the Camino. Many people complete only a short stage of the overall trail and nowhere is it written that you cannot hop on a bus if you are tired or behind schedule.

Fifty miles from Madrid, this town of 55,000 boasts a great Roman aqueduct, a cathedral, and a castle. Segovia is a medieval “ship” ready for your inspection. Start at the stern — the aqueduct — and stroll up Calle de Cervantes to the prickly Gothic masts of the cathedral. Explore the tangle of narrow streets around Plaza Mayor, then descend to the Alcázar at the bow.

Ancient aqueduct in Segovia, SpainBuilt by the Romans, who ruled Spain for more than 500 years, the 2,000-year-old Roman aqueduct (acueducto romano) is 2,500 feet long and 100 feet high, has 118 arches, was made from 20,000 granite blocks without any mortar, and can still carry a stream of water. It’s considered Segovia’s backup plumbing. From underneath the aqueduct, climb the steps off Plaza del Azoguejo for an overhead view.

Segovia’s cathedral — built in Renaissance times (1525–1768, the third on this site) — was Spain’s last major Gothic building. Embellished to the hilt with pinnacles and flying buttresses, the exterior is a great example of the final, overripe stage of Gothic, called Flamboyant. The dark, spacious, and elegantly simple interior provides a delightful contrast

Once a favorite summer residence and hunting palace of the monarchs of Castile, the Alcázar castle burned in 1862. What you see today is rebuilt, a Disneyesque exaggeration of the original. It’s still fun to explore the fine Moorish decor, historic furnishings, and grand Segovia view from its tower. After its stint as a palace, the Alcázar was a prison for 200 years and then a Royal Artillery School. Since the fire, it’s basically been a museum.

Roman and Romanesque Segovia was made for roamin’. Rub shoulders with Segovian yuppies parading up and down Calle Juan Bravo. For subtler charm, wander the back streets, away from the trinket shops and ladies selling lace. Segovia has a wealth of 12th- and 13th-century Romanesque churches. Look Catholic and drop in.

When you’re ready for dinner, look for Segovia’s culinary claim to fame, roast suckling pig (cochinillo asado — 21 days of mother’s milk, into the oven, and onto your plate). It’s worth a splurge here. For lighter fare, try sopa castellana — soup mixed with eggs, ham, garlic, and bread — or warm yourself up with the local judiones de la granja, a popular soup made with flat white beans from the region. Ponche segoviano, a dessert made with a mazapán base, is heavenly after an earthy dinner or with a coffee in the afternoon.

You can easily reach Segovia from Madrid — it’s just one hour away by bus or two hours by train. When you’re ready to move on, consider busing from Segovia to Ávila for a visit, then continuing to Salamanca by bus or train.