By Train

Our second night in Spain was spent on a train between Barcelona and Granada. I woke up just before dawn, somewhere in the middle of rolling hills (I believe just north of the Sierra Morena) to an amazing landscape formed from scattered tree silhouettes in front of a glowing deep blue sky. It was a disorienting experience, as the last daylit views from my window the night before had shown seemingly endless populated coastal suburbs of Barcelona. I have always been impressed by how train travel connects drastically different snapshots of a place, reinforcing how much there is between destinations that we don't always see.


The pictures I have don't do justice (between the low light, speed of the train, and the three layers of tinted glass), but that morning I saw the likely inspiration behind Dali's surrealist landscapes. Between this and the progression into the mountains it made the most beautiful sunrise I've encountered.