Very interesting is what Toledo is

Driving from Portugal to Toledo, we stopped in a little town called Elvas.  It had this fantastic aqueduct there.

As we drove into Elvas, we tried driving around to where we could see this aqueduct from a distance, but found ourselves in the middle of Elvas instead.  Then we found ourselves outside a walled off section of the city, so we decided to check inside the walls.  I wish I had gotten a picture of the entrance through the walls, but entering was a little scary.  Simply because there was room for only one car, so as a car enters, they honk hoping that a car entering on the other end heard their honk.  So, as we entered the short dark tunnel, we honked and hoped for the best.  Fortunately no one came in the other direction!  Once again, we found ourselves on very narrow streets not sure if they were one way or anything.  Eventually, we found our way to the edge of one of the walls and parked the car in a little lot close to the wall.  

Here are some scenes that I saw as I was walking around.

After walking around that area for a little bit, we all got back in the car right as it started to sprinkle a little.  We ate lunch in the car and then headed on to Toledo.

And as we were leaving Elvas, we saw this interesting castle on a hill.

And from further away

Driving into Toledo we knew was going to be another trying time because the hotel we booked was right in the middle of the old town section, where the streets are always so narrow and can turn into pedestrian walkways without warning.  This isn't a picture of our car, but this is how our car would've looked coming up the street that was close to our hotel.  We had to pull in our rear-view mirrors, because the walls sometimes were so close.

We are staying in precious little hotel in Toledo called the Hospederia Casa de Cisneros.  It was just around the corner that you see in the picture above where the car is coming up the street.  Here is a picture of the outside of our hotel.

And a view inside the hotel - this is what we saw when we would walk out of our room.

The view from our room's window wasn't exactly breathtaking, but the hotel was in a great location and our room was off of the main street, so it was a very quiet, very comfortable room.

Our first evening in Toledo, we walked around looking for a place to have dinner and found a little bar where we had some good food.  Weather was quite cool!  The next morning, we had breakfast in our hotel and here is Guillermo and Bill getting ready to enjoy a good breakfast!

After breakfast, we visited the Cathedral which was actually just across the street from our hotel!  Here are some pictures from the front of the cathedral 

and some pictures from the inside of the cathedral.  This hole was made in the ceiling and decorated because the church leaders thought the church was too dark.

One altar in the church

another altar in the church

The red thing to the left is a hat that a cardinal used to wear.  There are several of these hanging in the cathedral.

Beautiful Portugal

Friday, April 27th
Left Sevilla and drove to Evora Portugal.  We saw lots of storks along the way.  They build their nests at the top of electric poles.

In Evora, we stayed at the Hotel Ibis.  Even though it was quite cold, after we checked in and rested a little, we took a walk around in the old town.  Here's a picture of laundry hanging in the streets of Evora.  This is the kind of picture that a while back I said I'd post.  The kind of scene that makes me so glad that I have the clothes-hanging situation that I DO have and not something like this, since every time I hang up clothes, I drop at least one or two items.

Can you imagine?  Every time I'd have to go downstairs and pick up a sock or an underwear off the sidewalk!

We walked all across the old town and saw these old Roman ruins.

In this picture, to the right of the center, you can see an old aqueduct.  The sky also looks like a terrific storm was coming, but it only sprinkled a little bit.

We tried to eat at a restaurant in this plaza but they were all closed because we didn't realize there was an hour difference between Spain and Portugal.

So we walked back to our hotel, and here is another street scene in Evora.

We finally settled on eating at a Churrasqueria close to our hotel which even though they weren't scheduled to open for 30 minutes said we could go ahead and sit down and order.  We had an excellent dinner that evening.

Saturday, April 28th
Today we drove to Lisbon, and along the way the countryside was so beautiful.  Portugal is a beautiful country.  When we got to Portugal, we drove right through it since the city looked so huge and confusing.  We drove to some coastal cities and admired the beautiful scenery.  We felt very much like we were driving along the west coast of the United States, except this was the west coast of Portugal!

There were plenty people gliding on the air currents.

We found a nice restaurant along the beach where we had lunch. 

After lunch, the waiter invited us to go underneath the restaurant where they had many pools with all the shellfish that they serve.  It was quite interesting.   Then we drove back along the lower coast, stopping in Cascais to see the Boca do Inferno.

This day also we had angry looking clouds in the distance, and this time, the storm did get to where we were.  Fortunately, we were already in the car when it hit.

That evening, we had dinner at the same churrasqueria as yesterday.  Portugal was beautiful and very charming.  Lots of history there and many interesting castles, buildings, forts,etc.  We would definitely like to go back one of these days.


Sunday, April 29th
Left Portugal, drove to Toledo.  Stopped in a town called Elvas, took pix of the acueduct and found ourselves driving in through the old walls of the city.  That was a little scary since the entrances through the walls were for one car only so you had to honk and just HOPE no one was coming from the opposite direction.  We ate lunch in our car - weather was cold and rainy.
Got to Toledo and found ourselves once again driving in the old historic section of a town.  This place was amazing, too, and to get to our hotel, we had to drive on some streets where our car barely fit.  We had to fold the rear view mirrors in so they wouldn't hit the side walls.  It was cold and just sprinkling when we arrived,   We had to stop the car, take out the luggage quickly since it was a narrow one lane road and then Guillermo and I drove the car down to a place where we could park it for the next two nights.  Then we walked back uphill in the cold and now a good rain back to our hotel.  We had dinner in a little bar which was ok.

Cordoba and Sevilla

Wednesday, April 25th
Left Granada and drove to Cordoba.  Wow, this drive was just field after field after field of olive trees.  You could look anywhere in any direction and you'd see nothing but olive fields all over the place.  Every space of land was planted with olive trees.  It was amazing.
Getting to our hotel in Cordoba was quite the challenge!  The GPS was doing so good until we got into the old town section where all the little narrow streets.  It started telling us to turn around, go here go there on streets where it seemed cars weren't allowed.  We finally got out and stopped at a gas station to ask someone and we ended up back in the old town section STILL not sure where to go.  We then asked a series of people, each one leading us on a little further.  A policeman helped us to know we had to cross a bridge and then we'd come to a sort of gate thing where we'd have to buzz someone to remove the obstacle in the road.  This obstacle is put there so that only people who have business in there (like clients at hotels) can enter.  We told the speaker "Hotel La Mezquita" and the obstacle disappeared into the street.

Once inside, Guillermo parked the car and he and Bill walked around to see where the hotel was.  They came back and we drove the car over to the hotel, unpacked the car and then Guillermo had to back the car back down that narrow street to put the car in a nearby garage.

We had a good lunch at Bodegas Mezquita, and then visited the Mosque-Cathedral.  There is just so much history in all these little cities we've been visiting.

This is a courtyard in the Mosque-Cathedral full of Orange trees in bloom.  It smelled lovely in here.  

Inside the Mosque-Cathedral

This street we're on is called the Street of Flowers.

We did plenty of walking around in the Mosque -Cathedral, then walked around the old town and then walked across the river on this bridge to another tower, which was closed.

Looking back at Cordoba and the Mosque-Cathedral.

Then we rested before heading out to dinner at Las Piconeras.  Most of our dinners were very enjoyable - good food, and good either wine or Sangria.  

Guillermo took this picture of me sitting in the window of our hotel room.

Thursday, April 26th
Nice breakfast in our hotel and then we packed up the car and drove to Sevilla.  Lots of nice rolling hills along this drive with still more olive tree fields.  We only had to ask one person how to find our hotel once we got to Sevilla, with our GPS fading in and out with knowledge about where to lead us - but it did a lot better than when we were trying to get into Cordoba.  With such narrow streets it's sometimes hard to know if we're even ALLOWED to be driving on those streets, but Sevilla was easier because there were usually other cars driving in front of us on those little streets, so that helped us know it was ok to be on them.
When the GPS said we had reached our destination, we decided to pull over on a side street, park, and then walk around a little to see where the hotel was.  Amazingly enough, it was just around the corner.  So we unpacked as much as we could, Connie and Bill stayed with our stuff at the hotel, and Guillermo and I took the car to a parking garage, which turned out to be a LOT farther than we thought.

After getting the car parked, and settling our stuff into our hotel room (Hotel Simon) we walked past the cathedral of Sevilla to Cerveceria Giralda where we had paella.  This little restaurant was in a building that was a bath house back in the 900s.  Here are Connie and Bill with their Paella!

The Plaza close to the restaurant

After lunch, we visited the cathedral of Seville, which is one of the 3 largest cathedrals in the world.  It was built in the 15th century on the site of the former great mosque.  The cathedral houses the remains of Christopher Columbus.  

The entrance to the cathedral

This is where Christopher Columbus's remains are held.

We also walked up the Giralda Tower.  The tower gets its name from the weather vane on the top of the tower.  It is part of the mosque that existed there, with the Christians adding on to the top of the tower.  Inside the tower are 35 ramps up.  Horses used to be taken up to the top of the Giralda Tower.  

Then we went back to our hotel and rested before going out again for dinner.

The tower of Gold.  It was built in the 13th century and is said to have once been covered in gold.  Supposedly this is where all the gold was placed that they got from the Indians and from the Americas.

It was the Moors that really made the city what it is today.  Their occupation of the Iberian peninsula, from 711 A.D. to 1248 A.D. left permanent traces in Sevilla.