Landmarks of Dubious Purpose

We are zooming about Spain with our friends Terry and Jim, who I’ve known since we were in college. Here we see Terry, in a typical pose, offering a salute to Generalissimo Francisco Franco at the Valley of the Fallen.

This colossal basilica, longer than St. Peter’s in Rome, topped by a 500-foot granite cross, and taking nearly 20 years to build, is a monument to the dead of the Spanish Civil War. Allegedly a monument to both sides (as long as they were Catholic), the mausoleum was c...