El Maestrat

 

 

 

A land sometimes harsh, shaping a way of being and doing. Olive trees, pines, carob trees, orange trees, lemon trees, tangerines. Orchards and irrigation systems in dry and rugged lands, and villages, beautiful villages with humble dry-stone houses, next to imposing walled cities like Morella or Peñíscola, with its castle by the sea, encircling the white houses of the fishermen. Cathedrals like the one in Sant Mateu, and cave paintings declared a World Heritage Site.

And all of it is crossed by the Via Augusta, the Roman road that led from the center of the ancient world to the farthest reaches of the empire down in Andalusian lands.

It was alongside this Via Augusta that olive trees were planted in honor of officers who had fallen for various reasons. And it is these olive trees—immense, grand, ancient—that give the landscape and its people their character. They mark the paths of these lands, unknown to many, with the silver shimmer of their leaves, omnipresent.

Eternal silences broken by the northern wind, the scorching heat of summer months, the shadows of olive and carob trees, the cawing of crows and the whistles of blackbirds.

Scents of rosemary, thyme, and lavender. And the occasional smoking chimney that, in the winter months, signals that here, life is lived, felt, and loved since time immemorial.