A Summer in Spain

A Summer In Spain by Claudia Hamilton Ramsay is a vivid travelogue that chronicles a summer journey through Spain in the early 1870s. The narrator travels from Burgos to Valladolid, Avila, Madrid, Segovia, Toledo, Granada, Cordova, Seville, Valencia, Tarragona, and Barcelona, with side trips to the Escorial, La Granja, and Tangiers. The text blends lively observations of landscapes, architecture, art, climate, and everyday life with reflections on politics and religion, Carlist uprisings, and the Italianate rule of King Amadeus. It records encounters with nuns at Las Huelgas, the Cathedral at Burgos, the Prado in Madrid, Velázquez and Murillo in the Madrid and Seville galleries, the Alhambra and Generalife in Granada, Moorish inscriptions, and a gentle portrait of hospitality and manners of Spaniards. It also provides candid depictions of bullfights, Catholic rites, and Protestant communities, and ends with a voyage back to Europe, including Tangiers and Gibraltar, conveying both admiration and critique of 19th-century Spain.