In preparation for our travel trip to Spain in the summer of 2013, I will be spending time there this summer to stake out hotspots, visit sites and plan our trip. I will be taking pictures and posting them here to log my travels. To begin the trip, I am placing pictures here from a trip I took several years ago. Follow along as I journey through Spain and Morocco this June, so you can see what we can do next year.

 The walls of Avila were built during the middle ages as a way to protect the city from the raging war of the reconquest. Christians and Muslims fought over territory and control from 718 to 1492, which lead to the construction of numerous fortresses and fortifications such as you can see here. Many of such sites have been restored and you can climb up and walk along the city or castle walls to appreciate their work or reenact their battles!

This is a shot of Granada as I looked out over the city. Off to the left you can see the tower of the Alhambra, a medieval Arabic castle and the last Muslim stronghold during the reconquest. This is the city that in 1492 marked the completion of the peninsula as a unified Spain and the Catholic country.

In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes published the first part of his novel Don Quixote, in which a crazed adventurer believes he is a knight-errant to right the world's wrongs. In the iconic chapter eight he mistakes a series of windmills on the plains of La Mancha for giants. So, charging into the melee, he pierces the mill's blade that hooks him and spins him around. Here I stand at the base of these "giants" as I marched through La Mancha, retracing a portion of Don Quixote's voyage.