We're getting Married!

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(You have to read our story to get to the good stuff)

Sevilla is small, beautiful and the traditional ‘Spain’ we were expecting to find somewhere. The taxi driver from the train station drove through some urban neighborhoods and then stopped next to a road leading through a park with palm trees. He told us that our hotel was up the road and he couldn’t drive there because it was a residential zone. After we wandered through the park, some tiny narrow streets, and rang random houses’ buzzers to awake their owners from siesta, one of them told us how to find our hotel. It is situated right down in the oldest part of town, Santa Cruz. We could see why the cab driver could not drive down there. Virtually the entire historic downtown has only pedestrian traffic. Our hotel is in a beautiful old building and Kristi discovered that the roof access allows for amazing views of the cathedral and Moorish tower. At night the bats swirl around the lights of the tower and look like constellations in motion.
Today we visited the cathedral which is enormous. The amount of gold and silver that they brought in from the Americas to adorn it is mind boggling. Sevilla barely existed until the discovery of the Americas. Suddenly the silver trade started bringing such amounts of wealth into the city that they had no idea what to do with it…apparently other than cover all of their altars in it. As you could imagine, Christopher Columbus is pretty popular here and supposedly his remains lay in the church. We also visited the Giraldi Tower. This tower was started by the Moors and then finished by the Christians after they ran the Moors out of town in 1100 or so. The top of the tower allows for great views of the city and surrounding country side. The bells still ring and to our surprise, they ring while tourists are still up in the tower. Luckily it wasn’t the one that Kristi was posing directly under for a picture.
The food here is delicious just like in Madrid. Sooo much Iberian ham, I am in heaven. You can get four or five types of it anywhere you go; prosciutto style, salami style, sliced on bread, etc. They put it on the salads and in the soups. I’m sure I can find it in ice cream if I keep looking. The olives and olive oil here is delicious which would make sense since half of the trees we passed on the way down here were olive trees. It has a really piney, nutty flavor.
Last night we went to a Flamenco show. According to the guide books, the best Flamenco show in town is right around the corner from us. It is like three shows in one: classical guitar, singing, and fastest tap dancing ever. The rhythms that the dancers and the hand clappers make are amazing. After the beautiful show, we came back to our hotel and I took Kristi to the rooftop to overlook the city and the cathedral and proposed to her. That’s right, she said yes and it’s party time!
We are off to Casares tomorrow to drive around the coast and enjoy the beautiful small towns for a week. We will probably not have internet access down there, so we’ll update the blog the next chance we get.

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Photos

Michael with the Giraldi tower
Moors built it, Christians topped it off with crazy bells

Real Alcazar
Amazing palace in the middle of the city

Real Alcazar Floor
The floor. Everything is based around eights!

Real Alcazar Tiles
All of the walls were covered in these tiles

Comments

[Asha]

Congrats!!!!!
Can't wait to celebrate with you all in Prague :-)