Lires Beach

The wind whips the sea into a foaming frenzy that somehow seems to never run out of energy or titanic volume. The vast blue landscape expands beyond the limits of your imagination, causing you to wonder where it goes and what could be out there every time you peek into the endless horizon. But now a storm is brewing and the wind is getting cold, so you return to the safety of your castle and a warm fire in the hearth. Lires is a small coastal town in Spain. The unification of the crowns of Aragon and Castile laid the basis for modern Spain and the Spanish Empire. Spain was Europe's leading power throughout the 16th century and most of the 17th century, a position reinforced by trade and wealth from colonial possessions. It reached its apogee during the reigns of the first two Spanish Habsburgs – Charles I (1516–1556) and Philip II (1556–1598). This period saw the Italian Wars, the revolt of the comuneros, the Dutch revolt, the Morisco revolt, clashes with the Ottomans, the Anglo-Spanish war and wars with France. The Spanish Empire expanded to include great parts of the Americas, islands in the Asia-Pacific area, areas of Italy, cities in Northern Africa, as well as parts of what are now France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. It was the first empire of which it was said that the sun never set. This was an age of discovery, with daring explorations by sea and by land, the opening-up of new trade routes across oceans, conquests and the beginnings of European colonialism.