The speedy train drops me off on the concrete platform, early in the day. I love this town immediately. There are two thousand years history under my feet in Seville. Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, and all goods flowing in from the West Indies had to pass through Seville before reaching the rest of Spain. A golden age ensued for the town.

I quickly orient myself with the help of a map and locate the heart of Seville, the Alcazar.

The Alcazar is renowned as one of the most beautiful palaces in Spain. Once you go inside, it's not hard to see why. The upper levels of the Alcázar are still used by the royal family as the official Seville residence. The term 'Alcázar' comes from the Hispano-Arabic word 'Alqáşr' meaning 'Royal House' or 'Room of the Prince.' Peacocks roamed the garden grounds. Game of Thrones was filmed in this very palace.

But it wasn't the exotic birds or the intricate tile work or the Mercury pond that left me breathless with wonder.

Within the palatial rooms, a wrought-iron gate opens up to the veranda. I walk through and I am standing beneath a walkway covered by an airy cloud of wisteria. Sunlight seeped through the purple blooms. And I feel like I had stepped inside the page of a fairy tale. I linger under that walkway for a long while, allowing myself to be hypnotized by the garden, the fountains, and birdsong.

Four hours later, I come out of the palace on wobbly legs, woozy and bamboozled by all this beauty. Walking home that afternoon, around 5:00 PM, I pass by a small boutique on a narrow cobblestone street in some nondescript part of Seville. Something in the window display caught my eye. It's a wedding dress, but in a design I'd never before seen. Off-the-shoulder with sheer, lace sleeves, and a soft chiffon skirt. I paused briefly to admire it, thinking how befitting that even the wedding dresses of Spain have necklines that resemble a fairy tale princesses' wardrobe.

An ESADE student I'd met in Malaga told me, "You can't come to Andalusia without watching the Flamenco dance." So, that very evening, I went to watch one of Spain's dancers perform. I happen to sit next to a woman, Stephanie, who also comes from Canada. We found a little restaurant on the corner of the street which looks as ancient as the stones beneath our feet, and we sit on the patio. Stephanie, who knows some Spanish, takes control of the situation by ordering from the wholly Spanish menu, with no pictures whatsoever. Soon the waitresses brings two glasses of sangria, tiny plates of Iberian ham and olives, and a hot tapa dish which looked like a hamburger at first glance, but is in fact made of slices of roasted eggplant with fresh shrimp and melted cheddar and mozzarella cheese. I take a bite of it and the hot cheese runs away like topsoil in a landslide. The layers of flavor with the shrimp and eggplant and the cheese was so divine I could vanish right into heaven.

Every day I call or email Matt from whatever WIFI connection I can find, and one afternoon he tells me, "After I'm done here in Brazil, I'm taking a month off from work to travel Italy and Greece with you."

"You are?!!!"

Elated, I make squealing noises, spewing out little tips on which airlines have the best deals.

My last day in Seville, it was pouring rain. I took an umbrella and went back into the cobblestoned maze that is old town Seville. I sloshed through the rain, looking for the store with the lovely window display. But I never found it again.

I wish I had taken a picture of that dress.

* * *

Over the next eight weeks, I travel to Barcelona, to Nice, to Geneva, to Munich, to Salzburg, and then all the way to Istanbul in Turkey. These are short stays, mostly – three days here, a week there – just the right amount of time to get the feel for a place, to look around, and to visit the destinations that most intrigue me, not what the guide books tell me I should want to see. I know I probably should be interested in museums and art but I'm much more interested in medieval villages, castles, palaces, and theme parks made of crystal. The idea of princesses and knights fascinate me, and I can't wait to step inside the physical world of where these fantastical characters could, and did, reign.

I go on alone to wealthy, ample Barcelona, that famous Catalan town with its celebrated Antoni Gaudi architecture, where the most whimsical rainforest lived inside a church, and mystical dragon slayers hopped across every rooftop.

My favorite house in all of Barcelona has to be Casa Batllo, designed by Gaudi. It looks like a toy house inhabited by Smurfs fished up from under the sea. It's blue. The enormous second-floor windows looked like bones and jaws. The fourth and fifth floor had masks for balustrades. On the seventh floor, the tippity top of the house, was a single garret window and a tiny balcony where a princess could emerge any moment.

People say Casa Batillo is inspired by the legend of Saint George the dragon slayer. Long long ago, the peaceful Kingdom of Catalonia was plague by a fiery dragon, who likes to eat human flesh. Every day the King makes a draw, and the unlucky winner is sent to the dragon for dinner. One day, the draw came out, but the tribute was none other than the King's own daughter, the Princess. That night, the Princess stood on the balcony, crying, as she prepared for her untimely death. Just then, Saint George of the neighboring kingdom hears of the Princess' tragic fate and comes immediately to the rescue. He hops onto his trusted steed and gallops straight into the depth of the forest. After three days and three nights of bloody battle, the dragon was slain. The Princess and the kingdom were saved. A masquerade was held to celebrate Saint George's victory; wine and dancing and confetti flying everywhere, blue and green, splattering onto the façade of Casa Batllo, which under the artful brush of Antoni Gaudi became hundreds of colored mosaics that shimmered prettily in the light.

But it's not just the outside that's bursting with imagination with Casa Batllo; on the inside, it's tortoise shell skylights, walls of undulating ocean waves, fireplace tucked inside a mushroom, and winding staircase shaped like the dragon's spine, dear God, the dragon's spine...

When Gaudi was in architecture school, he often criticized that education was devoid of creativity, and many of his opinions caused controversy. Ultimately, he was granted a degree, but barely. "Gaudi is either a genius, or a madman," said his school director.

While Casa Batllo was being built between 1904-1906, Gaudi presided over the construction of the house. He went through great length of avoiding the use of straight lines, anywhere, so everything has an underwater swaying feel to it. Standing on the street, Passeig de Gràcia, Gaudi would fuss over every minute detail - even the placement of the mosaic tile chips on the façade, so the color gradient changed just so.

After Barcelona, I went up to the Bavarian forest to see the great Neuschwanstein Castle, also known as the New Swan Castle/Disney Castle. High up on the rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau, the Neuschwanstein stood majestically in ribbons of mist and cloud. A fan of swans and legends of medieval knighthood, King Ludwig II wanted to see his fairy tales willed into reality. No matter what it took. He devoted his personal fortune and nearly 20 years to the realization of this fantasy, but died before it was completed.

After a steep climb, I'm finally at the foot of the castle. I take a picture.

I walk through the wooden gate of this masterpiece of medieval romanticism, my heart tumbles with a love I can't answer or explain as I notice the attention to detail paid to each chamber, the Tristan-and-Isolde themed master bedroom, the swan sinks, swan faucets, swan fountains, the golden swan doorknobs.

I wanted to take in everything. There's so much to see. Every tower, every window, every painted scene of legend and poetry. Even long after he's gone, his love for fairy tales pulsed through the walls.

People called him the Fairy Tale King.

After Germany, I travel to Austria. On a morning walk through the green meadows of Salzburg, I'm listening to Jay Chow's "Simple Love." I sit down on the bench, beneath the shade of oak trees.

When I hold your hand I'm touched by a feeling I can't explain

I want to take you back to my grandma's home

I want to watch the sunset together until we fall asleep

Listening to his breezy melody, I wonder if he wrote the song in a place like this. In the countryside meadows, near his grandma's house, where the grasses are so green, and the sky is cloudless.

I felt so close to him. And I felt close to Gaudi, to the Fairy Tale King. Even though I've never met them, but I felt them through their art. The details of their creative endeavors spilled forth in my memory, and I felt surrounded by the collective goodwill of so many mighty souls.

I am not alone.

Because there are enough straight lines in this world, because we need more doorknobs shaped like swans.