This week’s dreams: Trips back in time, from India to the Caribbean

Taking a slow train in Spain; Delhi through the centuries; A nonbeliever in Lourdes; Aboard a Caribbean windjammer

Taking a slow train in Spain

In an age of high-speed train travel, said Andrew Ferren in The New York Times, I decided to do something perverse: Tour “virtually every medieval market town or fishermen’s cove” on the coast of northern Spain via narrow-gauge railway. My whistle-stop journey ran from the green hills of Galicia “to the snow-capped mountains of Cantabria.” Fellow passengers ranged from villagers heading to a nearby favorite butcher to English cyclists doing “in-depth research” on local wines. I departed from Ferrol, the birthplace of the late dictator Francisco Franco—noting that the equestrian statue of the town’s famous son has been “surreptitiously relocated” to a naval museum. In picturesque Viveiro, I hopped off to explore the tidy houses and galleries along the harbor, and to dine on grilled octopus. In Asturias, I hiked along the Navia River through a huge park known for its “crashing waterfalls, Roman mining towns, and Celtic ruins.” The province of Cantabria, reminiscent of Switzerland, is dominated by the Picos de Europa mountain range. “Sounds of cowbells and bagpipes ratchet up the region’s extraordinary alpine-Celtic-maritime mystique.”

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