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Travel Memories: Belchite

Welcome to the A to Z Challenge, an initiative that invites bloggers to post an alphabet-themed post every day (excluding Sundays) during the month of April.  As part of this challenge, I’ll be sharing some of my travel memories to known and unknown places in the hope to inspire your travel dreams.

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Belchite, Spain

B is for…Belchite (Spain)

There are two villages named Belchite sitting next to one another in the south of Spain. One is home to about 1,600 people. The other is a ghost town, destroyed during Spain’s Civil War (1936-1939). It has been left untouched as a reminder of the damage wreaked across the country.

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A look down the main street of old Belchite

On a 4 day mini Spanish roadtrip, we stopped at the ghost town to have a look around. This ended up being one of our favorite stops along the way. Educational and so visually powerful.

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Belchite, ghost town

The only way to see the ghost town is to join a tour from the new village of Belchite located down the road. We were lucky to have arrived shortly before a tour started, so we occupied ourselves in the new Belchite town’s playground while waiting.

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Even in the destruction, you can clearly see how beautiful these buildings must have been.

The tour was in Spanish, so we were given headphones for the English version. Not knowing much about the Spanish Civil War and having a toddler asking tons of questions, the headphones became necklaces more than the informative tour it was supposed to be! Thats ok though, much of our visit was spent walking around through the ruins taking photos and answering our 3 year old son’s questions about what we were seeing. It was a sad reminder of what happened, but it was also so powerful and moving. In general, we need these reminders in our world so each generation can see, feel and re-live the devastation of war. It is definitely a must see if you are ever driving through the middle of Spain.

Other posts in the A to Z Challenge:

Angkor Wat, Cambodia
This Post Has 19 Comments

  1. How interesting! I had a Spanish minor in college and studied about the Spanish revolution in literature. I found it fascinating!

    Reply

  18. […] In hindsight, this would have been the ideal location to stay the night. Instead, we powered on for our overnight stay in the industrial town of Teruel. We had grand plans to visit the Dinopolis (a fabulous dinosaur theme park), but decided to have a mellow morning instead before slowly heading a bit off path to the ghost town of Belchite. […]

    Reply

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