Hello from Seville and Granada!

We continued our tour by driving to Seville located in Southwest Spain. The drive from Toledo to Seville was quite pretty, with fields filled with olive trees, red clay, and sunflowers. The area is very dry, sunny, and hot so we saw multiple solar farms along the way. We also noticed that the houses in towns are almost always white with clay roofs to reflect the sun and keep buildings cooler. We also continually saw large bull signs all over Spain!

In Seville we had a neat hotel located in the center of the old town that was a completely remodeled house from the 1800’s. The location was great as it allowed us to stop back and cool down as the temperatures were about 104 degrees. Muy caliente!

The history of Seville is fascinating because the city was one of the battleground areas of the Reconquista between the Muslim stronghold and Catholics. Additionally, Seville was the port for exploration of the New World. Christopher Columbus and many other explorers set sail from this town. This port location led the city to great prosperity as it became the single point of entry for all ships from the New World so the city taxed all these imports at 20%. Not a bad return!

Our first stop in Seville was the main Cathedral and Giralda Tower. The cathedral is very unique because it contains Muslim influences (in fact, the site was once a muslim mosque) and houses the remains of Christopher Columbus. The Giralda Tower offers pretty view of the city, including the white houses and tile roofs.

Christopher Columbus’ Grave

We then went to the Alacazar which was a palace that changed control between Muslim and Catholics so the architecture differences (Roman and Muslim influenced) in this space are also fascinating.

Our afternoon finished with a walk through Plaza de Espana, a building and plaza built for the 1929 World Expo that showcased Spain’s prominence] in arts and engineering. For those who are Star Wars buffs, you may recognize this plaza from Episodes I and II.

We had a great dinner of tapas and then walked through the streets at night. The city comes alive at night when the blazing sun cools off and the little streets light up. Our hotel had a rooftop overlooking the cathedral so we finished the night with a few pictures from there. It was beautiful! 🙂

As I am typing this post, we have just finished visiting Granada on our way to Barcelona. In our short time in Granada, we visited the most famous site in the city – The Alahambra. The Alahmbra is a large fortress overlooking the city which was the center of Muslim rule of this area of Spain in the 1200’s-1400’s. In fact, the fortress remained the last hold in the Reconquista and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The fortreess is enormous, and we spent much of the afternoon walking through the palaces as well as visiting gardens which overlooked the city.

Adios for now!!