The Spiritual Traveler: Spain : A Guide to Sacred Sites and Pilgrim Routes

The Spiritual Traveler: Spain is an exploration of Spain's many sacreds, from the land's deepest past to its most immediate present. While a rich and vast undertaking, the routes and sites selected here are those that have the deepest spirit in Iberia, Visitors to Spain often speak of a deeply transcendent energy that pervades the land and the people. In part, it is because Spain is an ancient land with a continuity of many eras and many peoples who inhabited the peninsula for over 40,000 years. In part, there is a magic about the geography, a land of numerous mountain ranges, coastal zones, and great, broad plains and tablelands. Such rich natural and human diversity has infused Spain with a profound sacred experience, from Upper Paleolithic Altamira to St. Teresa's early modern Avila. Spain contains one of the world's great pilgrimage roads, the Camino de Santiago. Spain also possesses smaller and more local pilgrimages and sacred sites that reflect the vast richness of all its inhabitants, from the original Paleolithic inhabitants, to the original Iberians most likely arriving from North Africa, to the Celts, the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs and Berbers, and later, the emerging Castilians. More recently, Spaniards and diverse foreigners in Iberia are seeking new and old spiritualities, some native and others imported, but all sacred. The Spiritual Traveler: Spain reveals that the sacred is strong in Spain, preserved in living histories and practices, timeless sacred routes, and subtle but still vibrant folkloric traditions and mythologies.