Other than twittering birds and the insistent bleat of a goat in the distance, it's ethereally still among the ruins of Pinyeres. We've been meandering along the "Route to Peace," imagining the centuries of families who lived, loved, quarreled and ultimately died here. Now there's nothing but crumbled walls and this pervasive silence, until a pitiful meow interrupts our thoughts. A marmalade kitten with an injured foot and pronounced ribs calls out to us as he hobbles over the rocks. He rubs against our ankles, hoping for a meal (alas, we have no food) or affection gladly given, before settling down in the shade.

Like most medieval towns, Pinyeres is situated on the highest point of land in its valley, the better to see danger approaching. Throughout the centuries, the more modern town of Batea grew up around it. When destruction came in the 20th century, it came not by land but from the air, delivered not by invading foreigners but by Spanish countrymen. 

Unlike most of the damage incurred during the Spanish Civil War, the ruins of this small village, home to 2,500 people for three times that many years, have been left as a bitter reminder of the cost of war. It's impossible to walk among their ghosts and not be amazed that we continue to use bombs. 

An international group of artists and writers has created an art installation, the Alphabet of Liberty, to spell out these costs, in case the ruins aren't clear enough. Each letter of the alphabet offers a visual and verbal exploration of the ways in which war affects our lives. For example, a giant T is inscribed with the word terror. V illustrates a poem about vida (life) and violencia.   

Such a profound visual and historical statement should be easy to locate, but I could find no mention in any guidebook. It was only within half a mile of Pinyeres that we began to see arrows. Perhaps the reminder is too painful.

As for the sweet orange kitty, we seriously contemplated taking him somewhere... until his friends started appearing and we realized how impossible it would be to rescue them all, especially in a country where cats are generally considered more of a nuisance than beloved companions. Perhaps so much loss of human life puts everything else in a different perspective.