My name is Lía. Over the years of teaching, I’ve come to understand that cities are not just walked—they are felt with the skin, remembered with the heart, and breathed in through the surrounding air. Today, seated on a bench in Poets’ Square, I watch Santurel waking up slowly. This city doesn’t shout its history; it whispers it through a gesture, a scent, a sigh etched in stone.
Since childhood, the Castle of Santurel has been a sanctuary for secret encounters, where the stones hold their silence yet remember the passing seasons. Not long ago, I returned there, notebook in hand—not in search of stories, but of plants. I wanted to study a tiny chamomile growing through the cracks of a forgotten tower. Every leaf I brushed awakened unseen tales within me.
Then, I drifted down toward the Moon Bridge, a place that has always seemed steeped in an inexplicable peace. There, the river murmurs legends that no one has ever set to paper. Leaning on the parapet, a small, swift shadow—almost like a creature born of the water—slipped a smooth, perfect stone at my feet, as if fallen from elsewhere. I found it without looking. I gazed at it, pondering how something so simple could so deeply alter the way a place is felt.
I sought refuge in the shade of the elms in the square, to contemplate the stone in quiet. In silence, a subtle voice invited me to transcend the years, to feel the pulse not only of the present but of those who lived before. I realized Santurel was not merely a collection of buildings or monuments; it is the exact sum of those tiny gestures, those daily offerings unnoticed yet enduring, like roots beneath the earth.
Though I no longer walk school halls, this day in Santurel reminded me there is still so much to learn. For the city belongs not to tourists or lovers of superficial charm but to those who pause, who marvel, and who allow the simplest secrets to transform them.
Perhaps tomorrow I will return to the Castle, or beneath the shade of the Moon Bridge. Perhaps that stone will tell me another story.
But today, here in Poets’ Square, I smile in peace, knowing I am home without the need for a map.
