Huelva

Huelva watched the ships leave for the New World and kept the oldest football in Spain. The Columbian sites ring the city — La Rábida's monastery, where the friars backed Columbus when courts would not; Palos de la Frontera, the actual port of 1492; the reconstructed caravels at the wharf — and Huelva's Fiestas Colombinas each August toast the anniversary of the departure that redrew the planet. The city's other founding came by pit and dividend: the Rio Tinto mines' British era planted a Victorian colony here — the Barrio Reina Victoria's English cottages, the great iron mineral pier striding into the estuary — and, in 1889, the Recreativo de Huelva: Spain's first football club, the "Decano", the country's entire football culture descending from Huelva's English engineers wanting a kickabout.

The rivers Tinto and Odiel — one running mars-red with minerals, the other spreading protected marshes — frame a city that eats magnificently: the white prawns of Huelva and the jamón of the Jabugo sierra are twin denominations of local pride, with the strawberry fields feeding half of Europe. The concert record's register — bands, choirs, touring seasons at the Casa Colón's halls — carries the musical year. Caravels, copper and a kickoff: Huelva's exports changed several worlds.