Trevor Huxham

There’s some places you visit for the food— San Sebastián in the Basque Country comes to mind, with bars that are literally overflowing with tiny bites of pintxos —and then there’s others you visit for ancient ruins—think Arles in southern France with Roman amphitheaters and sewers. And there are other cities you spend time in for the architecture. Many of us live in a world of formulaic McMansions, soul-crushing strip malls, big box stores with 30-year shelf lives, and cold glass-and-steel office towers. We travel to cities with excellent architecture because these cities have a sense of place and because they remind us of the beauty in the world. Palau de la Música Catalana I think this is one of the big draws Barcelona has on many visitors. Yes, the cozy medieval streets in the Gothic Quarter are nice and all, but the gridded Eixample district, where the city expanded around the turn of the century, is where Barcelona really shines. Grand apartment homes were constructe...

#HouseGoals Galicia, tucked away in Spain’s northwest corner, happens to be one of the most densely-populated regions in the country. Major cultural and political centers include Vigo , A Coruña , Ourense , Lugo , Santiago de Compostela , and Pontevedra …and if we were to continue rattling off the region’s biggest cities, the coastal town of Ferrol would hold the spot for seventh-biggest, at 70,000 ferroláns . Ferrol (pronounced “fair-ROLE” [feˈrol]) doesn’t have the best reputation among Galicians, as it’s kind of the black sheep of the region; many folks call this place “ugly” and say “it doesn’t have anything to see.” Of course, I was told the same thing about Almería on the Mediterranean coast and ended up really enjoying the city when I daytripped there three years ago. Still, there’s a lot about Ferrol that makes it, uh, different  from the rest of Galicia. Military heritage Military arsenal Situated deep within one of Europe’s most strategic natural harb...

Rooftop view Today I’m finally getting around to writing about the road trip my housemates and I went on along Spain’s northern coast…in October. Sorry, guys! I’m so far behind, but I’ve got a long backlog of posts to work through. Our first stop along this tour of Spain’s most beautiful cliffs, beaches, mountains, and countrysides was the seaside village of Comillas in tiny coastal Cantabria. After warming up with the last fall rays of sunshine over a short  cortado  coffee, we packed in to our rental car and headed out of our base in San Vicente de la Barquera to Comillas. Sunflower tiles This town wouldn’t even have been on my radar had it not been home to one of the three buildings that architect Antoni Gaudí designed outside his native Catalunya. In fact, it was one of his first: El Capricho de Gaudí. Earlier in the year I had visited the other two commissions he took outside Catalunya, the Casa de los Botines in León and the Episcopal Palace in Astorga ,...

Perhaps the highlight of my late winter trip around Aragón , a landlocked region in east-central Spain, was the lonely, forgotten city of Teruel.  Although it’s the capital city of the province of the same name, Teruel is home to merely 35,000 people and is one of the remotest corners of the country; Teruel doesn’t even a direct train connection with Madrid! The area was so isolated up until recently that a group called Teruel Existe  (“Teruel Exists”) was formed to bring attention to the neglected province. Thanks to their efforts, a highway now connects  Zaragoza  with Valencia  and passes through Teruel. Teruel Cathedral So how did I come to love this scarcely-heard-of outpost in middle-of-nowhere Spain? Well, for one, several of the city’s monuments form the core of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragón World Heritage Site.  Teruel has a priceless collection of unique medieval architecture lying in plain sight! My inner history and ...