067 Spain: Seville; Cordoba

Spain: Seville; Cordoba
We are back in Spain

Our GPS has provided many challenges but this was up there with the best. This is 250m before the hotel. The car before us did a 5 point turn to get through. Notice the amount of gouged out concrete on the right. I walked up to look what was down the street and said to Frank "We can't make that". A wonderful lady popped out and assisted us around the corner. Only took Frank a 3 point turn! I gave her a big hug and a kiss :)

 

Flamenco: Amazing talent.
Seville claims to be the home of Flamenco.
The main guitarist was superb.
This was not a tourist spot. We had locals shouting 'Holay" which really added to the atmosphere.

In 1929 Seville hosted a world Expo and built this to house the expo. What you are seeing here is one half. There was a 'moat' and you could have a gondola ride.
The interior is still used as an administrative building.

part of the other half.

The first sky scraper in Seville. Just a bit incongruous, don't you think?

Seville has the oldest Bull ring in Spain and sadly still kills the bulls.
The season was over but I don't think we would have attended anyway. They kill 3 bulls per 'session'.
If the bull kills a matador they slaughter the mother so she cannot produce more offspring.

The bull ring also used to be used for training soldiers. They had to stab this head with a spike from the back of their horse.
In case you are wondering the head is made out of papier-mâché .

The Alcazar. Great place. Well presented and well restored.

View from a tower Frank climbed (keeps him fit :)
As you can see no sky scrapers. Most buildings are only 4 stories. Spot the bullring in the second picture.

We climbed the bell tower of the cathedral. I thought it was 17 ramps. It was 32 ramps and 17 steps. I thought I was going to die. The ramps are unusual and were done so that the chief poobah could ride up on his horse !
At the top the bell tower was magnificent. I had just said to Frank "I hope they don't ring the bells while we are up here" and guess what, just seconds later they did. OMG the noise. We don't carry our phones or have a watch so we rarely know the time - we just enjoy the moment.

Just one of the hundreds of courtyards (patio's). The Spanish are very house proud.

We saw an amazing number of weddings. This one was at 9pm with 4 white horses, tophats and tails. The wedding was in the cathedral with a huge crowd of people in attendance.
Even at this time of night it was still probably over 30C.

Cordoba. Just a quick 1/2 day visit by train.
It was over 35C and too hot for touring so we didn't enjoy it as much as we would if it had been cooler. Having said that it is a wonderful place.

Frank spotted these boomerangs in a tourist shop and had an unusual conversation with the owner of the shop.
First Frank wanted to know why he was selling boomerangs and the guy had no idea.
Secondly Frank told him he should stop selling them as this is Spain, not Australia. (in a friendly/funny manner)
The guy laughed.

Frank just loves Tapas, so when we spotted this place it instantly became his favourite.

And just when you think you have seen enough cathedrals there was the Mezquita in Cordoba.
It started life as a Christian church, got taken over by the Moors who changed it into a Mosque and then the Christians took it back and added even more, but thankfully they retained most of the Islamic/Moorish features. It is spectacular.

Just another of those photos Frank takes (Franks edit: this is actually the red hop on hop off bus tour guide and was only taken to show how smartly dressed they are!)

 

And that was Seville. We are so happy to be back in Spain.