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.
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.
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.
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