At the beginning of my book Stories Left in Stone: Trails and Tales in Cáceres, Spain, my friend Carlos Blay takes me deep into the Cueva de Maltravieso. There, in the dark, is the oldest known expressions of art in Europe (it was in the world until a recent discovery in Asia): a handprint on…
If you don’t follow Spanish regional politics, the name María Guardiola may not mean much to you. She is the current president of Extremadura, one of Spain’s poorest regions — a place rich in history, agriculture, and chronic underinvestment. But her recent political trajectory offers something far more universal than local intrigue: a near-textbook case…