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Lisbon is home port of Portugal's other great export, the musicians Madredeus. After talking with them, and after a few days in the watery light of Lisbon — the most enjoyable hours spent at the oceanarium beside the Tagus — it's a half-day drive back to Spain, and to the town where I live in Extremadura. Trujillo (true-he-yo) was the birthplace of Francisco Pizarro, the son of a noble and a maid. Pizarro, along with brothers and friends from Trujillo, went in search of El Dorado, and found it in Peru. The price of all the gold and silver they took was the end of Inca civilization.
In 1532, the conquistador routed tens of thousands of Incas with only 180 men, 70 horses, and of course guns. Today a bronze Pizarro on horseback, sword in hand, rules Trujillo's square. Back at home — just off Calle Pizarro — I find that the only thing I admire about the man is how lightly he traveled. After some 3,200 km on the road, my car is up to the roof with cases, papers, junk and dirty washing. It reeks of Ponte de Lima garlic.
With clean shirts and a cleaned windscreen, it's off to Valencia, 625 km away on the east coast to visit the City of Arts and Sciences shaped by Spain's best-known architect — and leading bridge designer — Santiago Calatrava. Also to meet Joan Oleaque, a rare combination of journalist and gitano, or gypsy. He turns out to be one of the nicest of so many warm and open people I've met, a thoughtful fellow of 32 who nevertheless laughs all the time, reaching over and touching my arm so often that my notebook resembles a spider's web. Luckily I had a tape running — you can see what he has to say on our website, www.time.com/time/europe/specials/ff/.
Back to Trujillo then up to Madrid by bus, a three-hour, 250-km trip. The early part is rolling, dry countryside full of my favorite tree, along with the olive: the alcornoque, or cork tree. You think while admiring their tortured grace and resilience that some of these might have been around when Pizarro was plundering Peru: the alcornoque has an average life of 500 years if its bark is not harvested; half that if it is.
Madrid for this country boy is primarily four things: Goya and Velázquez in the Prado; Picasso's Guernica nearby in the Queen Sofía; the Joaquín Sorolla Museum at the former home of the Valencian impressionist; and a bar called the Villa del Narcea, in the Quevedo area, where my late mother-in-law Vicenta introduced me to one of the great beauties of Spain — a tapa called patatas alioli.
From Madrid to Barcelona, to meet the captain of FC Barcelona, Pep Guardiola, who confounds the theory that footballers' brains are in their feet. By the time I'm home again in Pizarro's town, I've crossed 6,500 km of Spain and Portugal. I know, having lived in Spain eight years, that I've barely scratched the two surfaces.
The last leg to Barcelona was by plane, on the shuttle called the puente aéreo, or air bridge. That word again. But this is how I read the Iberian Peninsula: an unfinished bridge between barbarity and civilization, between history and hightech, Europe and Africa. A bridge whose tricky construction I'm lucky to be watching.
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Iberian Connections
A count with a social conscience, flourishing ancient trades and folk-singing Irish pilgrims
Photo Gallery
Check out the photos from this leg of TIME's Fast Forward Europe voyage
Immigrant's Tale
An African from a former Portuguese colony is now a Lisbon architect with political aspirations
Bilbao Reborn
The Guggenheim museum is just a part of this rust belt city's renaissance
Dotcom Paradise
The Catalan capital is becoming a hive of young Networkers
It's Up to Us
Spanish footballer Josep Guardiola on the price of players and the need for cultural identity
Fine Art of Science
Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava's buildings echo the natural world
Language of Bridges
A Spanish-led team always has one more river to cross
'I Can Only Be Happy if My Neighbor Is Happy'
Missing family jewels are the last things on the mind of a modern Portuguese count
Engine of Change
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has helped turn the region's economic fortunes around
Between Two Worlds
TIME talks with Roma journalist Joan Manuel Oleaque
People To Watch: Leire Pajin | Madredeus | Ariadna Gil
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