I’ve posted two new articles here on my website.

The Highest Mile: In Spain, the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, has been an important pilgrimage route since medieval times to venerate the relics of St. James. It’s not one route, but several, and pilgrims can walk directly from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela, although few do. I hiked the route in the Guadarrama Mountains up to the Fuenfría Pass between Madrid and Segovia, where I found a solitary but not spiritually quiet meadow.

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel decree: As a Spanish-to-English translator, one of my specialties is historic Spanish, and a few years back, I translated a document from 1491 signed by the King and Queen of Spain for an auction house. By itself, the decree is a minor matter about ownership of a farm, but it illustrates a crucial historic moment.