Spanish, Invisible Cities, Hedgeless fields

On the Eurostar to Paris we are surrounded by spanish speakers: are we going to the right country?

In Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino I read: "There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening, with the odour of the elephants after the rain and the sandlewood ashes in the braziers..." A haunting image like much of this strange book, which consists of a dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Kahn. In it Marco Polo describes cities he has visited in his travels, but which seem to come out of his imagination.

Between Calais and Paris there are broad fields of different crops divided not be hedgerows, but by occasional trees that look like spectators on a touchline.