Victor and I joined his parents for a six-day journey through the Catalan Pyrenees, splitting our time between high mountain landscapes and stone villages that seem suspended somewhere between history and habit. We based ourselves first in the Vall de Boí, then moved east…
I had been to Valencia once before, back in 2019, but that trip barely scratched the surface. It was a work visit, rushed and contained, and I left with the sense that I had seen only a version of the city rather than the…
After a wonderful first day in Girona, we woke early on our second day, keen to see the city before it fully came to life. The streets were noticeably quieter, and when we reached the cathedral steps again, there were hardly any people around.…
I first visited Girona in September 2016. I remember thinking how beautiful it was, how good the food was, and how hot it felt wandering through the old town at the tail end of summer. It left a strong impression, one of those places…
We arrived in Tarragona by train from Barcelona, a journey that already sets the tone for the day. The tracks run close to the Mediterranean for long stretches, the sea appearing and disappearing between towns, cliffs, and beaches. It feels like easing into something…
The idea for this weekend began weeks earlier, during a visit to Ensérune in southern France. Standing on that exposed hilltop, I learned how places like Ensérune functioned not as isolated settlements, but as crossroads shaped by trade and contact. Cultures met there not…
Once the workdays and museum visits were behind us, Madrid began to feel different. Less like a place to be understood and more like a place to move through without intention. We spent hours simply walking, letting neighbourhoods lead into one another, stopping when…
Madrid was never meant to be Spain’s most beautiful city. It became its most important one almost by accident. Chosen as the capital in the sixteenth century largely for its geographic position, the town grew inward rather than outward, shaped more by administration than…
From Carcassonne, the transition into Cathar country is subtle at first. Vineyards still line the road, and villages appear familiar in scale and colour. But as we headed south, the land began to tighten. Valleys narrowed. Hills rose more abruptly. Stone replaced soil, and…
We left Combaillaux early and headed west, leaving the limestone valleys of Hérault behind. The change that followed was subtle rather than dramatic. Vineyards and low hills did not disappear, but the land began to open out, and water behaved differently. Valleys softened into…