Segovia or cathedrals aren’t what they used to be

About a year ago Joey and I were at Barnes and Noble flipping through photography books on Europe. While looking at a book on Spain we came across a few sweeping panoramas of a tiny medieval town called Segovia. One look at the fortified walls, the forbidding castle, the jutting spires of the cathedral, and the endless arches of the aqueduct, and I knew that we had to go. Luckily, Segovia is a short bus ride away from Madrid and after our night in the inferno of Jeremy’s apartment, a day in medieval village sounded nice. We bought some food, boarded the bus, and headed to Segovia.

Segovia is beautiful and if you are in Madrid for any amount of time at all it is worth the bus ride. But I have to say, our time in Segovia solidified a shift I’ve sensed in myself concerning travel. I’ve been to Europe a handful of times and to other places where you travel in a similar way, namely, you stay in a major city, take in the major sights, enjoy the local cuisine or some of other culturally significant thing like flamenco or bullfighting.

But lately I’ve really just wanted to be outside, to hike and to enjoy the landscape of a place more than the things I’ve traditionally enjoyed. The castle was amazing and I always love cathedrals, but the best part of the day in Segovia was when we hiked around the perimeter of the city. At one point we were lost, so we cut across a field and down a hill through some trees, and that was the most fun I had all day.

I enjoyed it because it was restorative. I didn’t feel like I needed to accomplish anything other than enjoying the landscape. Much of the way I travel is reflective of how I live my life, namely that I am striving to learn and to accumulate information, purely for sake of having information. My number one strength is input. I collect information like middle school girls used to collect trolls—that is, crazily. Europe is great for that because everything has a story, everything has cultural weight. There is information everywhere and if you are wired like me, that can turn into work rather than pleasure.

One thing I’ve been learning this year spiritually is the difference between vacating and recreating. The vacation implies vacantness, that you are fleeing a space, fleeing your life. But that never works. If you are a workaholic at home then you are going to manifest those things on a trip. Vacating isn’t really possible in my opinion, and if it is then it certainly isn’t healthy because it is probably coupled with mind-altering substances. Recreation is different—it is re-creative. What this means is that when we travel or take any time for ourselves it should recreate us. Our day in Segovia was that for me.