Seville to Granada

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A Gothic Cathedral can be a scary place. We visited Seville´s. It´s very large (one of the largest in the world), and houses columbus´tomb,¨"treasure" (that´s what they call the church´s gold), the remains of bishops and saints (often in the "treasure"), more bitter oranges, and a tower with one hell of a view.
The next day we went to Itálica, the largest Roman ruins in Spain. It´s outside of a town called Santiponce, but the site keeps the old Roman name. Two emporer´s came from here, and it was the Roman´s seat of power on the Iberian peninsula. It´s amazing that so many mosaic tile floors remain intact more than 2 milennia later.
We worked up quite an appetite walking around the sunny ruins so we walked across the street and ordered the house specialty: Conejos de Campo con Arroz para Dos (braised country rabbit with rice for two). It was a flavorful stew and left us stuffed for the bus ride back to Seville. That night i cooked for some friends and talked the night away, sharing experiences and horror stories.
The next day we rode a train to Granada, a city to the east that sits on the southern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The town is just ok (not as enchanting as Seville), with a large university student population. There´s lots of hippies and political graffiti (i think this is what East berlin must´ve felt like a few years ago).
Today we tromped up a mountain to the Alhambra, a fortress cluster of mainly muslim palaces dating back to 9th century. As with most this here, it grew over the years, from fort, to palace, to christian king´s palace, to deralect building, to Napoleonic barracks, to Washington Irving´s hangout, to restored world heritage building. It´s very pretty and words won´t do it justice (bloody expensive though).
After enjoying the views of the town offered at the top, we walked down and enjoyed some beer and tapas. The tapas in Granada are wonderful, complimentary with our first round we got mussels with pico de gayo and marinated cooked ham, and with our second round got boiled head on shrimp and serrano ham on bread!
Now we need a nap before we investigate more of this "tapas" thing :-)

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Photos

Granada
This is a view from the Alhambra over the city of Granada. You can see the Sierra Nevada in the background.

Lunch
We took our friend Cara´s advice, and had a nice lunch of Ibérico Ham, local wine, Manchego cheese, some smell sausage, and some bread. A nice couple, who ran a Charcutería, dealt with my bad Spanish patiently. We ate on the roof of our Inn.

Plaza de España
A large plaza in a large park built in 1929 in Seville. Beautiful, but lacking the soul (and crowds) of the older city.

God´s House
Cathedral of Seville. It´s an impressive place of the Gothic style.

Plaza de Toro
The Bullring of Seville as seen from the cathedral. Afterthought: kinda like God´s box seats.

Columbus´s Tomb
This is the sulpechre of Christopher Columbus. It´s in the Cathedral of Seville, and is pretty big. This guy must´ve been important. I get the impression that Spain credits him with the income that help drive out the Moors.

Statue
This is a replica statue at Itálica.

Planets on the Floor
This is a Mosaic of the Planets (seen here as faces) on the floor of the ruins of a house at Itálica. 2000 years old!

Ampitheatre of Itálica
We spent most of our time discussing where we would have put the refreshment stand. But, seriously, it is pretty big.

Quite a View
from the Alhambra

The Fountain Garden (?)
Or something like that. It´s in the Alhambra

Happy Couple
at the Palacios Nazaríes at the Alhambra.

Close up
of the Walls at the Alhambra palace. The entire place is covered in this.

What´s the password?
Sneaky.. ...very, very sneaky.