By way of taking a girl to central Spain (3)
I believe the answer is:
via
'by way of' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a girl to central spain' is the wordplay.
'a girl' becomes 'vi' (**).
'to central' indicates the central letters.
The middle letter of 'spain' is 'a'.
'vi'+'a'='VIA'
'taking' is the link.
(Other definitions for via that I've seen before include "Going through" , "Passing through" , "By way of - in Latin" , "A Roman way" , "Roman road" .)