In 1935, Laurie Lee set out to walk across Spain, a journey he later described in the second volume of his autobiography, 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.'
Seventy years later, infected with the romance of his favourite writer's vision, Paul Burroughs decided to follow the same route on his much-abused bicycle, named for Don Quixote's faithful steed.
A middle-aged man with a mortgage and a family, rather than a footloose tramp with a pocketful of pesetas, he soon realized that a poet does not always make the most reliable guide for the first-time traveller. But sustained by Lee's beautiful prose - a continuation of his poetry by other means - he got a glimpse behind the scenes of a country he thought he already knew, and discovered a kind of happiness, riding Rocinante in the heat of a Spanish summer.
Seventy years later, infected with the romance of his favourite writer's vision, Paul Burroughs decided to follow the same route on his much-abused bicycle, named for Don Quixote's faithful steed.
A middle-aged man with a mortgage and a family, rather than a footloose tramp with a pocketful of pesetas, he soon realized that a poet does not always make the most reliable guide for the first-time traveller. But sustained by Lee's beautiful prose - a continuation of his poetry by other means - he got a glimpse behind the scenes of a country he thought he already knew, and discovered a kind of happiness, riding Rocinante in the heat of a Spanish summer.
