A small village, hardly more than a handful of streets, nestled in a narrow valley with its own, almost private cove. The mountains embrace it so intimately that the world outside remains distant; what remains is a quiet, self-sufficient microcosm.

In Germany, it is famously said, "I wouldn't even want to be buried there," when one dislikes a place. Here, it was the opposite for me – and precisely in the cemetery of the village.

When I first came to Portbou in 2017, I climbed up to the Cementiri, which lies above the village on a ledge. A high wall surrounds it, and inside is deep silence. Between the graves and cypress trees, a wide view opens up over the sea, cool and shady even on hot days. In that moment, I knew: Here I could one day lie. Not out of sentimentality, but because the place is undeniably beautiful.

On that day, I also stood before the grave of Walter Benjamin. On the simple stone lay a scallop shell – the sign of the pilgrims who have completed the Camino de Santiago. For them, Finisterre, just a few kilometers further west, marks the "end of the world" and thus the actual destination, and also the goal of my journey at that time. Here, at Benjamin's grave, beginnings and endings seemed to touch in a strange way.

From this unusual starting point, I began to explore the village and its surroundings more closely – in a sense, backward, with the end before the beginning. What I found has not let me go since.

Portbou is not a loud paradise, not a postcard motif for the masses. It is a place that takes its time and gives back your own time. After thirty years of searching, I have stopped searching here.