The Whirlwind of Sevilla, Cordoba, and Granada

Here we are after a week of travels, and it does not feel like we have been gone for that long at all... Since I last blogged, we have had several adventures, and we have also been adapting to the way of life in Spain, enjoying it immensely.

We took a day trip to Cordoba, which houses the famous Mesquita, which is a huge Moorish mosque that was turned into a cathedral during the Reconquista, but the structure of the cathedral was not changed at all. It is huge, with huge double red-and-white striped arches throughout the entire building. It has been interesting to see how the fight between the Muslim Moors and the Spanish Catholics has shaped the history and culture of Spain. We also rambled around and Old Jewish Quarter in Cordoba, which provided sufficient old-world abience with narrow, twisty lanes and flower-ladened window boxes. We were there during the siesta, so the only people we saw were in tour groups, because people in Cordoba take their siesta very seriously.


For our last day in Sevilla we decided to tour the cathedral, which is the largest in the world. It is undergoing renovations and constructions because the large supporting pillars have a bad habit of cracking, so we did not get to see it in pristine condition, but it was a beautiful old church with lots of ornamentation, and the tomb of Columbus. We also got to climb the Giralda Bell Tower, which gave us a wonderful view of the city. We enjoyed our last paseo, or evening walk, around Sevilla. It is so fun to watch all of the young families and old couples out for their evening walk. I really like that spending time with family is so central to every day life here. To top off our evening, we went to a flamenco show in a private patio of an old house in the Sevillan Jewish Quarter. The show was amazing, and was definitely the best way to finish off our stint in Sevilla.

Yesterday, we spend most of the day getting to Granada, but we explored the Albaycin, or old Moorish Quarter in the evening. We had a lovely dinner overlooking the Alhambra from across the ravine.

Today we toured the Alhambra in all of its glory. We almost did not make it, because we were supposed to be leaving at 8 AM, and we did not wake up until 820... Luckily our hostel is literally 3 minutes from the entrance, and we are good at getting ready very quickly. The palace was amazing- intricate plaster and wood work, fountains everywhere, and gorgeous views of the city. The Alhambra was the sight of the final surrender of the Moors to the Spaniards, as well as where Columbus was commissioned for his journey to the New World. There were also lovely gardens, which I thoroughly enjoyed. We spent the afternoon wandering around the Alcaceria, or old silk market, and the rest of the city. It was very enjoyable. Granada is a larger city than Sevilla, so it definitely has a more metropolitan, edgy feel. There is also a large hippie population, which gives the city a less traditional atmosphere than Sevilla had. It is a wonderful city to wander around, and the Alhambra was gorgeous. It has been fun, and tomorrow we are off to Madrid!

Hope you all are well, and hopefully we will have more soon!

Traveling Craziness in London and Sevilla

We´re here!

After three flights and over 24 hours of travel with no sleep, we finally made it to Sevilla. Unfortunately, our baggage did not, and we´re still waiting for it to show up...

After arriving in London and discovering that we did not have our bags, we decided to go into London for the day before our afternoon flight to Sevilla. We wandered around Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, and Green Park, where we saw a huge parade of bands (marching bands and bands on horses) and the British military, who were apparently practicing for the celebration of the Queen´s anniversary next week.

Seeing all of the different, colorful uniforms and the funny hats was quite amusing. I´ve also never seen people playing instruments astride horses, much less a band of 100 of them. After this exciting event, we flew to Sevilla.We wandered around Sevilla for almost an hour before finding our hostel, but we got a nice tour of the city.

Our hostel is fairly quiet and comfortable, and we were very glad to sleep. This morning, we were awoken by a huge parade passing under our window. There were people leading the procession with flags, then others carrying huge candles that were as tall as they, then a float with the virgin Mary that was probably carried by at least 25 people, then the priest and a little girl who was celebrating her first communion, followed by little boys with incense censers, lots of family and friends, a 20-man choir, and a 75-person brass and percussion marching band. Luckily we got some video of them. It was quite amazing to hear all of those brass wailing away in the small streets. I didn´t know that the first communion was such a huge deal, but it was quite a site.


After this interesting procession, we toured the Alcazar, which is an old castle, where Columbus was received and honored after his voyage to the New World. It had a huge garden, which was very pretty. Besides the tour, we had a relaxing day wandering around the city and seeing all of the beautiful buildings and getting sunburnt, since our sun screen was obviously in our bags... Sevilla is quite pretty, with narrow, winding streets and sunny plazas. It´s very exciting to finally be here!

It doesn´t look like I can put my pictures on to this computer, but hopefully somewhere on the trip we´ll be able to. Hope you all are doing well! We´d love to hear from you!