Visiting Villalobos, Spain - Part One

What this site is all about.

One day many years ago, my father told me about a city, or town, or village (he wasn't sure of its size) somewhere in Spain that I might be interested in.

We opened our world atlas and started looking for a place called Villalobos, but we were unable to find anything. Disappointed, my father said, "Maybe my father was wrong. But he was the one who told me about Villalobos, Spain."

More than three decades later, in the 1990s, I became aware of a new phenomenon called the Internet. I decided to search for the town my father had talked about, and this time I found a tiny dot on the Andalucian landscape: Villalobos, Spain. It did exist! ...

But it was so small I could not get any other information on it: population, history -- not even its precise location. Nothing. So set the idea of visiting Villalobos aside. Maybe someday. I told my father I had found the place his father had told him about, and that it really did exist, but couldn't give him any details.

He was glad to know, at least, that his father had been right.

In 2003, my father passed away. He was ninety-nine years old. Two years later, my wife and I finally had a chance to fly to Spain.

By now the Internet had developed something called Google, and with it I was able to search in greater detail for the place of my origins.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered there were two places in Spain named Villalobos. One was several miles northwest of Madrid; the other lay in Andalucia, somewhere southeast of Cordoba and northwest of Granada.

Although my wife wanted to visit the major cities like Madrid, Toledo, Seville and Granada, my heart was set on seeing at least one of the two towns called Villalobos.

Whereas my father (and his, and his) had come from Aguascalientes, Mexico, I had to see the land of my more ancient ancestors.

In tomorrow's post, I'll explain what happened. I would continue writing now, but I find that no matter how interesting a long post is, it soon becomes ...well, uninteresting.

---BTW, Happy 96th birthday, Mom!