Sevilla

I'm back! It's been a week filled with kleenex as I caught quite the cold. But, it's on the way out (let's hope) and I'm spending my Friday night catching up on sleep and blogging. Not the most exciting evening ever, but it's the perfect cure. :)

Back to where I left off, in Valencia. Our train took us from Valencia to Sevilla, and would require us to occupy ourselves for 8 hours. We had our list of games handy when we boarded the train, but I proceeded to doze off within the first half hour. My travel cohorts got started without me, and I joined them later post-nap. Mainly, we just talked, but man did we cover some topics! We were able to jump off the train about half-way there, stretch our legs a bit and catch some fresh air. Just when we THOUGHT we'd be rolling into Sevilla though, we realized we weren't all that close after all. Our 8 hour ride turned into 9.5 hours!! You have NO idea how glad we were to get off that train!!

We had a bit of a hike to get to the hostel, but I think we all were just enjoying the fresh air. The fresh, WARM air! It was a lovely temperature, for being after 9:00 PM! We got checked in and then went out in search of some dinner. We were told to hit this spot called Levies, by a guy at the hostel. We heeded his advice, and it turned out to be great that we did! It was a WONDERFUL dinner and we were even able to sneak in our daily sangria, even if it was at the end of the day (see right) We sat on this outdoor patio that had orange trees scattered throughout, and the little orange blossoms would fall on us as we ate. It smelled wonderful, our food was great, and we were all just OVERJOYED to be off the train that it was a great dinner. We went back to rest up for the next day, where we hoped to see as MUCH of beautiful Sevilla as we could! (To clarify, 'Seville' is how we say the city's name in English, and 'Sevilla' is how it's pronounced in Spanish with the double l's sounding like a 'y' sound.)

We woke up to sunshine and all decided it was time to break out the shorts! YES! (see top picture) Pasty legs and all, I did NOT care! After grabbing some pastries (ha), we strolled towards the Cathedral of Seville, which is the 3rd largest cathedral in the world! The only ones bigger are St. Peter's Basilica of the Vatican and the Basilica of the National Shrine in Brazil! We were able to go inside, but mass was being held, so the main parts of the Cathedral were closed off. We decided to come back later that day to see the rest of it.

So, if was off to the 'Alcázares Reales de Sevilla' or the royal palace. It's known simple as the Alcázar. The palace evolved with each new monarch that resided within it, and it has BEAUTIFUL architecture (see right and left)! We were able to get in for free, thanks to being students (YAY!) and decided to shell out the SPENDY 3 € for an audio guide. I'm glad we did, because the audio explained what all the rooms were used for and which monarchs created them. As you all know, royalty fascinates me, and it was very interesting to hear about the different kings and queens of Spain. The palace architecture was also just gorgeous! It covered periods from Islamic up to Neoclassical, and used different styles from everything in between as the new royalty would add on as they took their place in the palace. My favorite part though was the gardens (see left and above right)! I'm officially in love with Spain for the wonderful gardens that are in every city we visit! The palace garden was HUGE (which is to be expected) with fountains, pieces of architecture scattered throughout the groves of orange trees that were all blossoming as we walked around. It was like stepping into a little heaven. I LOVED it there. (See right, how can you NOT love that?!?)

After absorbing all the history we could about the palace and soaking in enough sun in its gardens, we headed back to the Cathdral (see left) to see if we could hop in to explore more. We stopped to eat lunch on the way, sitting outside to soak in more of the sun's rays. For the first time in Europe though, I actually got sunburned. And I was okay with that! With a little food in our bellies, we went back into the Cathdral. It truly was magnificent with it's VERY tall vaulted ceilings (see right) and gold encrusted altarpiece (see below right). Christopher Columbus's tomb is also there, something I wanted to see. It's funny, as Americans, we learn about how Columbus discovered us, sort of. But in Spain, he's LEGEND! He really started their conquering of the 'New World' and initiated much of the Spain colonization of the centuries that followed his voyages. His remains were brought back from Cuba and now remain in the cathedral in an elaborate tomb. His casket is held aloft by the kings of the four kingdoms of Aragon, Leion Castile and Navarra (see above left, if you can see it at all). My picture is kind of dark, but if you want to see a better image of it use Google. :) We climbed up the attached bell tower, called the Giralda, which used to be a minaret. (A minaret is an architectural term for tall spires that appear on Islamic mosques, the word itself means 'lighthouse' in Arabic. Fun Fact!) The views were beautiful from the top (see below right), though getting up there was exhausting. Although, you climb ramps to get to the top instead of stairs, which was orignally supposed to be so people could go to the top on horseback. (Another Fun Fact). After pictures were taken on all sides, we journeyed down the ramps, and out of the cathedral.

We walked down to the river to enjoy a little siesta time...and also get some more sun! After enjoying the inside of our eyelids for a bit, we ventured in search of some souvenirs and sangria. We were successful with both! Post-sangria we decided to grab some dinner, and went back to our 'find' of the night before, Levies (see below left). Carolyn and I shared some tapas, including meat in tomato sauce (which was actually really good) and a tuna/bacon combination (which was NOT so good). I also tried some pasta salad, that was the most vibrant orange I've ever seen (all can be seen in picture below left.) It was okay, but nothing fantastic. I should have just ordered LOTS of the 'meat in tomato sauce'! Either way, we all were able to fill up and we went back to the hostel to relax and shower before that night! We had planned on going to see Flamenco that night, and we bought our tickets for it at the hostel. Relaxing ensued until it was time to meet up with the rest of the others staying at our hostel to go to Flamenco. We realized, as we were walking with our large group, that it wasn't the most organized event. The bar we went to, to see the Flamenco, was empty when we arrived, and the girls that performed, although they were good, did very little dancing. They were in normal street clothes, not the traditional dress I had imagined, and actually sang for us while a guy accompanied them on a guitar. It was cool to watch, but not what we had anticipated. We also had paid quite a bit to come see them, and I was a bit annoyed that we didn't get to see REAL Flamenco. Oh well, we had a fun night out at the bar that night before heading home, pretty late, to the hostel.

Stay tuned for Malaga - the final stop on the Spain adventure!