Spanish Holiday I: Madrid, Seville, and Cordoba

I am on sabbatical this year (July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019) and so am not teaching. This allowed me to take vacation time that matched Veronica's the first three weeks of September. We have a bunch of places we want to travel to together (perhaps more than life remaining to us will allow) but decided on Spain. We started in Madrid (flight from Vancouver to Paris, then transfer), then moved on to Seville with a day trip to Cordoba, then drove to Ronda for two days, two days in Granada, and then we flew to Barcelona for the last week (just arrived).

Let me describe the first part of our trip in Madrid, Seville, and Cordoba. We started the trip with a bad cold we brought with us, that dragged on through the first week and a bit of our trip. However, we still managed to do minimal touristing every day and saw all the things we really wanted to see. In Madrid, the number one stop was the Prado Museum. It is basically only paintings, which is not really my thing, but there were some notable ones. Veronica was keep to see the Nude Maya by Goya from a documentary she remembered seeing as a child.

I liked The Witches by Goya, originally a mural on a wall in his house. I think he must have been a role player...

I also liked Christ Falls on the Road to Calvary by Raphael. I am not knowledgeable about art, but I liked that there are so many interesting things in this painting. You can look at it for quite a while and still find some bits you had not yet noticed. 

I got the pictures of the paintings from the internet, so didn't violate any rules in the museum. We also visited the Cathedral, including the crypts where you have to walk on rich, dead people. 

We also visited the Palace, which had a great view and a lamppost I told Veronica she could get me as a present.

I am not much of a shopper, but I would have bought these shoes if only I didn't have my chronic foot problem that is helped by sturdy, stiff-soled shoes.

We then travelled to Seville by the fast train (250+ km/hour). We are staying in apartments using AirBnb, so we have had a kitchen and laundry in every place so far. Veronica set this up, and our whole trip so far. It has been a good way to travel and I can say (now we are in the last apartment in Barcelona) we have had no real duds in terms of accommodation. The apartment in Seville (the courtyard is shown below left) was in the Plaza de la Encarnacion which has the Parasol Metropol. This is a huge structure that is part art, part architecture, that you can take an elevator up in and get a view, and there is a bar. This combines many of my favourite things! 

The giant tree in the last picture is a ficus. Watch out for your house plants, they could destroy your whole house! 

Veronica came with a knee problem, so we have been trying to take it easy on the amount of walking we do. Luckily we can afford taxis when we have all our luggage (and with two people, it does not cost so much more than transit). In Seville, we took a horse drawn carriage tour to save our energy for a tapas tour we did in the evening. 

Our first attempt to get into the Real Alkazar was met with a huge line for tickets. We went a few days later with a tour that provided tickets. This is a pretty common thing here, so be prepared to book through a tour agency if you really want to see something. There is an additional cost, but the guides we have had so far have been value added. The Real Alkazar gives the scenes of the Dornish court in Game of Thrones, so that made it a bit more fun for me. 

We took a day trip from Seville to Cordoba. Here, there is a mosque from the time of the Moorish settlement of the Iberian Peninsula. I really like Moorish decoration -- it covers everything floor to ceiling but is quite subtle so it does not feel like too much. When the Christians took over, they built a small cathedral in the middle of the mosque (really). According to our guide, this turned the whole place Christian. Below are sections of the mosque (left) and cathedral (right). 

Another tourist sight in Cordoba is a pedestrian bridge, originally built by the Romans. They had come to Spain for olive oil and wine, still a good thing to get here. We had some time to kill before getting the train back to Seville, so we took a loop on a city bus for a cheap tour of the town. 

Through many of the places we have visited, we have had pieces of the history of the Moorish settlement and the later Christian victories over them. The Moorish conquest took ten years, the later Christian conquest eight centuries. It gives you a sense of who was actually welcomed. The Moors were scientifically enlightened and tolerant of other religions and cultures. The Christians brought Pogroms, the Inquisition, and book burning. Maybe Europe would have been better off letting the Moors take over. Maybe the US should elect a moderate muslin president...