My paternal grandfather served as a Captain and combat engineer in the Army during the Second World War. I didn’t hear many war stories firsthand and neither did my father. The account goes that his unit, 1308th Engineers, built, repaired, and, when necessary, destroyed bridges for the Allied forces pushing through Europe toward Berlin. They also cleared mines laid by the Germans. He trained in England for the invasion, which he joined shortly after D-Day.

In Normandy and fluent in French, he was invited to dine one evening, along with his Executive officer and another soldier, with Paul de Tocqueville, a relative of Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America (V.1, 1835 and V.2 1840). He probably didn’t show it, but I like to think that, amid all the chaos of the invasion, some part of him was delighted by the opportunity. They were treated to veal, fish, wine and cognac that the Germans had failed to find during their occupation. He took part in the Battle of the Bulge, was slightly wounded, and spent some time in the South of France after Germany’s surrender. That’s all we learned from a memoir written by a fellow combat engineer that served with him.

For all the violence and brutality of that war, he came away with something unexpected: a deep affection for Europe.

Years later, having returned to Puerto Rico and established himself as a builder, he would take the family back across the Atlantic. Not for a week or two, but for months at a time. Long summers spent on the road, covering thousands of miles across the Old World.

With my father, his brother, and my grandmother along for the ride, they drove to many places. Le Mans for the Vingt Quatre Heures. The Nürburgring. Paris, Munich, Prague, Vienna, Rome, Madrid—one great city after another, connected not by flights, but by roads.