Desde el interior de la península, mi madre quería llegar a la costa antes de cenar.

Desde means from or starting from. Here, Desde el interior de la península gives the starting point of the journey: from the interior of the peninsula.

It sets the scene before the main clause:

• Desde el interior de la península = from the interior of the peninsula
• mi madre quería llegar... = my mother wanted to arrive...

Spanish often begins a sentence with this kind of location phrase when it provides useful context.

In Spanish, nouns usually need an article when used in a general or specific way. So interior here takes el:

• el interior = the interior

Then de la península specifies which interior:

• el interior de la península = the interior of the peninsula

Using la before península is also normal because it refers to a specific peninsula in context.

Península means peninsula: a piece of land mostly surrounded by water but connected to the mainland.

In Spain-related contexts, la península often refers to mainland Spain / the Iberian Peninsula, depending on context. A learner should notice that this can sometimes be a geographical term and sometimes a culturally familiar shorthand.

Quería is the imperfect of querer, while quiso is the preterite.

Here, quería suggests an ongoing intention, desire, or plan in the past:

• mi madre quería llegar a la costa... = my mother wanted / was hoping / intended to reach the coast...

This sounds like background information or an uncompleted goal.

If you said quiso, it would usually sound more like:

• she tried to or she decided/wanted at that moment

So:

• quería = ongoing past desire or plan
• quiso = a more definite, completed past event of wanting

Because after a conjugated verb like quería, Spanish often uses an infinitive to express what someone wanted to do.

Structure:

• quería + infinitive
• quería llegar = wanted to arrive / wanted to get

This is very common:

• quería comer = wanted to eat
• quería salir = wanted to leave
• quería llegar = wanted to arrive

It works much like English wanted to + verb.

The verb llegar normally uses a before the destination:

• llegar a Madrid
• llegar al hotel
• llegar a la costa

So a here means to:

• llegar a la costa = to reach / arrive at the coast

This is just the standard pattern of the verb llegar.

La costa means the coast or coastline, a broader geographical area.
La playa means the beach, usually the sandy place itself.

So:

• llegar a la costa = reach the coastal area
• llegar a la playa = reach the beach itself

In this sentence, la costa sounds more natural if the idea is traveling from inland to the seaside region, not necessarily to a specific beach.

Because after antes de, Spanish uses:

• a noun, or
• an infinitive if the subject is the same

Here:

• antes de cenar = before eating dinner / before having dinner

This is very natural because the person who wants to arrive is also the person who will eat dinner.

Compare:

• antes de cenar = before having dinner
• antes de la cena = before dinner

Both can work, but antes de cenar focuses more on the action of eating.

It could be, but it would mean something slightly different in style.

• antes de cenar = before eating dinner / before having dinner
• antes de la cena = before dinner

The version with the infinitive sounds very natural when talking about actions and schedules. The version with the noun sounds a bit more like referring to the mealtime itself as an event.

In everyday Spanish, antes de cenar is extremely common.

Spanish often drops subject pronouns like yo, tú, ella, because the verb ending usually makes the subject clear. But nouns like mi madre are often included because they add information and make the sentence more explicit.

So:

• quería llegar... = she wanted to arrive...
• mi madre quería llegar... = my mother wanted to arrive...

It is not redundant. It tells you exactly who she is.

Yes. Spanish word order is flexible, especially with introductory phrases.

For example:

• Mi madre quería llegar a la costa antes de cenar desde el interior de la península.
• Quería mi madre llegar a la costa antes de cenar desde el interior de la península. (much less neutral)

But the original:

• Desde el interior de la península, mi madre quería llegar a la costa antes de cenar.

is very natural because it puts the starting location first as background information.

Both are possible, depending on context.

• wanted to get to the coast sounds more natural in everyday English
• wanted to arrive at the coast is closer to the Spanish structure

Spanish llegar literally means to arrive, but in many contexts English prefers get to. So a natural translation may differ slightly from the literal one.

Nothing in the grammar is uniquely Spain-only, but the phrase la península can feel especially familiar in Spain, where people often use it to refer to mainland Spain in contrast with the islands, Ceuta, or Melilla.

So the sentence is standard Spanish overall, but that cultural use of la península may be especially recognizable in Spain.