Books, Arts & Manners: Guadalupe

Last fall, my husband and I traveled for over a month in Spain, mainly to look at Spanish cathedrals. We love the country because it is so very different from France and Italy (more austere, I would say) and because the people are both charming and reserved. And the churches are wonderful, as is the landscape in some parts. Take Estremadura, in the west: a vast, empty land whence came the explorers of the Americas—the Conquistadores, such as Pizarro, who found Peru. But of all of Estremadura, I especially love Guadalupe, the sanctuary housing the Virgin who is the Patron of “All the Spains.” We went there again on this visit, and the experience was as rewarding spiritually, aesthetically, and humanly as it was the first time.

We drove to Guadalupe from Trujillo, where the Plaza Mayor, irregular in shape and on different levels, is flanked by sixteenth and seventeenth century buildings decorated with arcades, loggias, and imaginative corner windows. Pizarro, high on a horse (this sculpture was by the Americans Charles Runse and Mary Harriman), dominates the square of his hometown.

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Nika Hazelton

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Last fall, my husband and I traveled for over a month in Spain, mainly to look at Spanish cathedrals. We love the country because it is so very different from France and Italy (more austere, I would say) and because the people are both charming and reserved. And the churches are wonderful, as is the landscape in some parts. Take Estremadura, in the west: a vast, empty land whence came the explorers of the Americas—the Conquistadores, such as Pizarro, who found Peru. But of all of Estremadura, I especially love Guadalupe, the sanctuary housing the Virgin who is the Patron of “All the Spains.” We went there again on this visit, and the experience was as rewarding spiritually, aesthetically, and humanly as it was the first time.

We drove to Guadalupe from Trujillo, where the Plaza Mayor, irregular in shape and on different levels, is flanked by sixteenth and seventeenth century buildings decorated with arcades, loggias, and imaginative corner windows. Pizarro, high on a horse (this sculpture was by the Americans Charles Runse and Mary Harriman), dominates the square of his hometown.