Roads To Santiago: Detours and Riddles in the Lands and History of Spain – A Literary Journey Through Spanish Culture with Poetic Passion and

Roads To Santiago: Detours and Riddles in the Lands and History of Spain – A Literary Journey Through Spanish Culture with Poetic Passion and

Roads to Santiago is an evocative travelogue through the sights, sounds, and smells of a little known Spain-its architecture, art, history, landscapes, villages, and people. And as much as it is the story of his travels, it is an elegant and detailed chronicle of Cees Nooteboom's thirty-five-year love affair with his adopted second country. He presents a world not visible to the casual tourist, by invoking the great spirits of Spain's past-El Cid, Cervantes, Alfonso the Chaste and Alfonso the Wise, the ill-fated Hapsburgs, and Velázquez. Be it a discussion of his trip to the magnificent Prado Museum or his visit to the shrine of the Black Madonna of Guadalupe, Nooteboom writes with the depth and intelligence of an historian, the bravado of an adventurer, and the passion of a poet. Reminiscent of Robert Hughes's Barcelona, Roads to Santiago is the consummate portrait of Spain for all readers. "Invites the reader to share the excitement, experiences, even food, that the author has encountered while weaving his way through [Spain] slowly and deliciously . . . Mr. Nooteboom lingers in out-of-the-way places most tourists miss."-The New York Times Book Review "Nooteboom plunges fervently into the fabric of Spain itself."-San Francisco Chronicle CEES NOOTEBOOM was born in 1933 in The Hague. He has published nine novels and over a dozen collections of travel writing, including Roads to Santiago. He lives in Amsterdam and Spain. An exemplary travel book, the result of 40 years wandering in provincial Spain... In Spain, the Romanesque churches stand in out-of-the-way places, they are graceful and understated... If novelists were churches, Nooteboom would be Romanesque. Nooteboom ranks with Gerald Brenan, Ian Gibson, and Robert Hughes as outsiders who have written great books about Spain this century. His book has the odd capacity to make you change your life, or at least consider doing so. These journeys, this way of traveling-slow, meditative, solitary, full of knowledge-this is how we all should travel.