Day 7 - Adiós Portugal, Olá España!

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It’s time to say adios to Portugal, it’s only been a few days, but it’s time to head back to southern Spain. I’m not sure why I thought we were going to Costa-del-Sol today, but because I did, we thought it would be cold and we wore jeans. But we are actually going inland to Sevilla, were it’s hot! When we got off the bus it was 37C or 98F and that is certainly hot, even by Florida standards! But we’re now true Floridians, so we just dealt with it. Those of us from Florida, Arizona, and Texas didn’t have much trouble, but some of the northerners were dying.

Sevilla is a beautiful city of about 800,000, home to the third largest cathedral cleverly named the Cathedrale de Sevilla, actually the official name is Our Lady of the Holy See. (Holy See is another name for the Pope, for all you non-Catholics). It is very modern city, and it seems to have a much younger population, at least from what we have seen. There is a lot more actual shopping near the hotel, not just the souvenir shops. I think John and Linda have given up on ever getting their lost luggage returned and were planning to go into town and get some new clothes and suitcases.

Our first stop upon arrival was the Cathedrale de Sevilla, the third largest cathedral in the world at about 250,000 sq ft. It has a bell tower that it about 320 ft tall, the tallest structure in Sevilla. The cathedral was originally built in the 12^th century as a mosque, but was damaged in the 14^th century by an earthquake. It was then converted in the 14^th and 15^th century to a Catholic cathedral. Interior is huge and the altars, vestry, and organ along with all the other appointments are really impressive. Most of the rooms are protected by iron gates to protect the massive amount of gold and silver used on the carvings from being stolen.

The cathedral also contains the tomb of Christopher Columbus. There were evidently several sites that had claimed to be the burial site of Christopher Columbus around the world, and even rumors that his body was cut up and buried in several places. But thanks to modern DNA and the remains of some of Columbus’s known descendants, evidently they were able to prove in 2006 that the remains in the Cathedral de Sevilla were indeed the actual remains of Christopher Columbus. At least that’s their story!

The courtyard of the cathedral contains many orange trees, and the surrounding has around 40,000 orange trees planted everywhere. Unfortunately, these are bitter oranges, not sweet enough for eating, but they do have the sweet aroma of oranges, and the orange blossoms smell great in the spring. The added benefit of the oranges being inedible as that they remain on the trees!

After the cathedral tour, we went on an additional walking tour of the old Jewish district. Before the 14^th century, most of Spain was populated by Moors who were Muslim, Jews, and Catholics. At this time, the Jews were the literate ones, so the old Jewish district was closest to the palace. After the 15^th century everyone was either converted to Catholicism or forced to leave. Most of the city has been modernized including the destruction of the original 2000 year old roman aqueduct, but large protions of the old Jewish district remain. In fact parts of the Game of Thrones involving the Kingdom of Dorn were filmed in these buildings.

The walking tour was great, and our local guide was well informed, unfortunately it was really HOT! The temperature had climbed to about 100F and we were still in long pants. We still enjoyed the tour and tried to stay in the shade wherever we could. By the time we returned to the bus, we were ready to check into the hotel and put on shorts.

The hotel room is great, as have all the rooms been on this tour. We were too tired to do any exploring this afternoon, so we just relaxed in the room before heading out for dinner at about 7:00. The restaurant was called La Hosteria del Laurel and was in the old Jewish part of the city that we ahd visited earlier. We were the only ones in the restaurant as no one else in Spain would be crazy enough to eat as early as 7:00pm. In fact, in southern Spain they tend to eat later, typically at about 11:00pm. Too late for us!

We sat at long tables of 8 and the food was brought out course by course with a plate to be shared by each group of 4. There were about 10 courses, from potatoes to vegetables, omelets, fish, and pork, with chocolate mousse and coffee for dessert. It was all delicious though I did skip a couple of the vegetables that I didn’t like. We all had a great time!

After the dinner, we headed out to where a horse and carriage ride had been set up for us. The carriages typically held 4, but we had only Caren the diplomat from Beirut with us for a group of 3. Caren is very interesting, about a year from retiring and has some great stories of her travels and her career with the State Department. The horse and carriage ride was about 45 minutes, and by now the sun was beginning to set and the temperature had dropped so that it was a beautiful evening for a ride, The ride took us through a huge park, developed along with several buildings for the Pan-Am Games of 1929 and it was the end of a perfect evening. By the time the ride was over and our dinner had settled it was time to head back to the hotel for the night.

One of the Kims – we call them that as they are an Australian couple who are both named Kim – was robbed today by a pickpocket. She thinks it was a couple of girls in white dresses. She was wearing her backpack, thinking it would be safer than leaving it on the bus, and they unzipped an outside compartment and stole about $1000 worth of jewelry. The streets are evidently not quite as safe as they appear.

At this point, I am trying to post this blog and head off to bed myself, but I am having trouble connecting to the Wi-Fi, so it may be time to head to bed and try again tomorrow. We are staying 2 nights in Sevilla, and tomorrow we head out to the old city of Cordoba in the morning, with a Flamingo demonstration in the evening. It should be great fun!

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