Spain 2015 – Part 3 – Seville & Cordoba

Mon Aug 31

Seville (Sevilla)

Up early again with nice Parador breakfast in the Parador de Caceres. We get the car from the garage and maneuver out of the narrow streets of town using the GPS with only a few wrong turns this time.

We drive past Seville and straight to the Parador 25km outside of town in a small town called Carmona (Parador de Carmona). This is the most picturesque ancient setting for a Parador yet. It is amongst the alcazar (“fort”) ruins where the walls of the ruins make up some of the walls and enclose the car park. Fitting into the car park is through a narrow arch cut into the wall. The Parador itself is perched on the edge of hill commanding a view of the surrounding countryside. We upgraded our rooms for 10 Euros to get a view.

We drive into town with the GPS which directs us to a filled parking lot. Then we spot a slot on the street right in the midst of the attractions. It is 2 hour parking but as we go to pay, if you read the Spanish it says that there is free parking in August. So we don’t pay and leave the car until late in the evening with no consequences. We’re lucky again.

Head to the tourist bureau and arrange for tickets for the Tour Bus and confirm information for the Flamenco performance we are planning.

The main attraction of Seville is the Seville Cathedral, which is the largest one in Spain (perhaps in the gothic style … not sure about the modifiers). It has an amazing collection of art, treasures, and his huge. Nancy and I walk up the Geralda Tower which is 34 flights of walking (no stairs) so the mules could walk up. It was quite the commitment in exercise.

We take the tour bus around the city and use the multi-language headphones to learn more about Sevilla similar to what we did in Madrid. We then get out at the beginning and look for shopping and refreshment spot. Our navigation in the city via walking is challenged by maps that aren’t quite accurate enough.

We then proceed to the location for the Flamenco performance. We have some tapas in the attached café and wait until the performance doors open. It lasts an hour and we able to take pictures at the end, which can be seen below.

The hostess at the hotel gave us some hints of good places for dinner and we managed to trek in that direction after the Flamenco performance. We found a nice place on the street for dinner and got back late that evening.

[17,311 steps]

Tues Sept 1

Cordoba

We rendezvoused in the morning at 8:45 for breakfast and then headed toward Cordoba, which was going to be one of our shorter drives. We made an effort to get some alcazar (fort) photos while departing and we think a couple of them came out quite nice. The weather is quite a bit less smokey then the previous day.

We arrive in Cordoba before lunch and check into a nice, but modern Cordoba Parador. It’s perched on a hillside overlooking the valley but the view is mostly commercial/industrial/residential. The parador itself almost resembles a Marriott in the now familiar parador colors (tan/brown/neutral).

We decide to package up some items to mail home and head in the taxi to the post office. The first one is not one that accepts mail so we head to the next one. We get number 84 and they are currently serving 14. So we depart back to the parador to leave the items and then taxi to the start point of the tour bus.

The initial tour bus pickup point is with a great view of the Visit the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba or the Mezquita of Cordoba. We can take pictures of the Roman gate and restored bridge over the river. The river used to be navigable to to the Mediterranean but is now silted up.

Cordoba has quite the history. It was once the eastern capital of the Moorish empire. While Europe was in the Dark Ages Cordoba flourished as it had more culture and people than Paris or Constantinople. All three religions (Islam, Christianity, and Jewish) live in relative harmony, but with Islam in the dominant position. People traveled from all over to trade and work with the Sultans in Cordoba.

Once it was conquered by the Christians it regressed to the Dark Ages. In fact, the Christians destroyed part of the Mosque to incorporate a Cathedral into the Mosque (which was itself built on top of both Gothic and Roman ruins).

Based upon the advice, we take tour bus number 1 through most the route and get dropped off in front of the Mosque. Touring it was amazing. It has many columns and the design was very intricate. It’s less ostentatious than the cathedrals as the topics of the art are traditionally restricted for Muslim practices. No imagery of people are allowed, just nature.

Afterwards we took the other tour bus and then dropped off at an area that would be good for dinner. We decide to have tapas at a location where Roman ruins have been incorporated into the new municipal building.