Spain: Day 8... last day!?!?!?!

 I cannot believe the whole week has gone by. Other than my extremely sore feet, it feels like I just got here. Oh well, lots of great memories, plus, you have to end one trip to be able to go on another one!

Add a little sangria and boy howdy, it was good.

A quick lunch at Saint Michael market. Finally got the tortilla españa Bailley has been talking about. Man, that place has such a good sampling of everything. I mean, check out one side of the olive case.

The typical little market flower shop on a Sunday.

And a long walk (shocker I know) to the Reina Sofia art museum. Lots of mixed media exhibits, but also saw lots of Dali's and Picasso's.

Looking for directions to the museum as we hit the front door to the apartment building.

Breakfast from the coffee shop next door, with the view out the window... listening to the church bells.

Spain: Day 7

Day 7... wait, WuuUUUTTT? Oh my where did this week go? Last day tomorrow :(

 

The day ended with a bit of souvenir shopping before dinner and walk back to the apartment.

Our cozy elevator in the apartment.

In most of the rooms, photos were not allowed. But the entry stairs and first couple of rooms it was ok. All the rooms were as opulent as you'd expect. With each room having beautiful chandeliers and murals on the ceilings that rivaled any where I've seen.

Here's B getting the audio tour downloaded before we started.

Day started with a quick hike to the Royal Palace for our tour. I snapped a few quick photos from the apartment or just outside as we went.

Spain: Day 6... Sevilla

 

Again, the sheer size is tough to capture. Hopefully my brain can keep as many of the memories as it can.

Then we pushed on to the Plaza de Espana. My sunburned head made me more than happy to buy a 'Spanish' six euro hat from China.

Then an al fresco lunch, of enough food to feed eight people. And yes, we did eat it all.

The gardens around the alcazar were spectacular.

After the cathedral, we walked to the alcazar. I had thought in Toledo that there was THE Alcazar... but alcazar just means moorish fort... and there are a lot of them in this area of Spain.

And wow, the tomb of Christopher Columbus. He sailed for Spain from Sevilla, so I guess it's fitting that this is his resting place.

The next morning we got tickets to go into the cathedral. Again, tough to describe or even capture in pictures.

In the sunset, everything just glowed.

Ummm, yeah. Like 20 steps and there's the Cathedral de Sevilla.

After a short rest, we decided to grab a bite. The sangria and food were great. The restaurant seemed to straddle two streets and I kept noticing lots of excitement and happenings on the one behind Bailley, opposite of where we walked from. So we leave in that direction.

We stayed at a small hotel, right in the middle of the maze.

Yet another hike from the train station to find our hotel. Mostly just normal big city, but when we got to the older section... wow. So many beautiful, tiny streets in all different directions.

Spain: Day 5... day trip to Cordoba

 

OK, back on the train to Sevilla where we'll stay the night.

I _had_ to have some gelato to get me through the last mile or two walk back to the train station. I tell ya, B is on a quest to walk me to death, and she's gotten close.

Inside the Mosque/Cathedral. Wowza, The outside was large, ish, I guess. But inside was crazy huge. Almost funhouse like. I would have never imagined it. I was hesitant to buy tickets, but was so glad we did. The next few are all from inside.

Inside the plaza with a nice view of the bell tower.

Doing a little souvenir shopping.

Inside the plaza at the Mosque/Cathedral.

This was a great spot. Behind me is the bridge and in the picture behind B is the edge of the Mosque/Cathedral. More on that later. This is also where we got on a hop on/hop off bus tour. Was nice to hear some facts and not having to walk more than the 4-5 miles that we still put in. B is trying to kill me... more on that later too.

The Roman bridge that's in most of the Cordoba photos.

Yeah, everywhere you looked was very pretty.

First pic of like 40,000 of a gorgeous medieval wall. They had walls around walls... all depending on who was in power and how many levels of walls they wanted to add.

Well, another early start, ouch, I'll remember for the next trip. We had a nice train ride, maybe an hour and a half. I was surprised how empty the rural areas were, like almost no small towns after getting out of Madrid.