More about Spain - Toledo and Seville

Well, the adventure continues....and now I have car stories!

OK, so I pick up my car at the airport in Madrid, and it is great...a small mini-van (for those of you meeting me...yeah!) It´s a standard, which is normal here, and not a problem for me to drive. I rented the GPS, which I learned in Sweden is both a good and bad thing. Good, in that it gives you a vague idea of where you need to go...bad when it INSISTS you need to turn right....into an embankment! I´ve learned when that happens, I just have to get far enough away that it won´t just keep telling me to turn around and go back into the embankment! It actually has to recalculate the route. Of course, this has entailed the thing ¨falling across the car¨ a couple of times!

So now I´m on may way to Toledo, and it is an easy drive, until I get to Toledo and have to find a hotel and a place to park. One person I met wondered how it was that the roads were so exactly designed to be one car width? I´m not sure if I was always supposed to drive there, but at least I didn´t hit anything. So parked the car (whew!!) found a hotel and all was well. While wandering around Toledo, I discovered something else (besides amazing architecture). Dried ham and hard bread BOTH expand when they hit your stomach, something my stomach does NOT like. Oh well, after that, the bartender/waiter and I began talking in some random language that was part spanish, part french, and part english. He told me that the city was only 2KM wide and 2KM from top to bottom, and if I really wanted to see it, I should take the ring road on the other side of the river and go to the terrace cafe on the side of the mountain and get a great view. At least that is what I understood, he could have been expounding on the flat earth theory. So the next day, I´m leaving and I decide to find this great café. OKKKK....

Somehow I had been driving for 2 days and had never put the car in reverse. I´m not sure how that happened, or if I just go lucky once, but anyway, I´m driving on the road up the hill on the other side of the river and pull in to a parking space at the café, only to find that one was closed. But now I can´t back out, because I can´t get the car into reverse!!! So finally, after a few minutes, there was this old guy with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth washing his car by throwing buckets of soapy water on it. Hey...maybe HE can get it into reverse, on the strange theory that mechanical devices work better for men (?), but he can´t get it in reverse either. OK, so now call AVIS; the car is broken. Only AVIS wants me to call someone else, and the old guy is still trying to put it in gear, when all of the sudden he starts to laugh, and does this strange thing with pulling something up around the gear shift knob and the car goes into reverse! YIPPEE!!! And now he´s telling me the story about how this happened to him once before and the woman (his wife??) laughed because he didn´t know how to put it in reverse and there was a lot more to that story, but I´m pretty sure we went back to the flat earth theory at that point. He talked for a while though! And I did find the terrace, and here are the pictures to prove it!

So anyway, got to Cordoba, and here are some of the things I saw. This is the inside of the mosque there, which has also got a catholic church inside, so you have this beautiful court, with chapels all around and a huge center alter and choir...The main alter, with the cool ceiling that is a combiantion of muslim and gothic design..

One of the side chapels...

All of the cities I´ve visited so far have been on rivers...makes sense for defense, etc. So is Cordoba, and this is an old water wheel that was used as early as Roman times. It´s been rebuilt several times, used to pump water to the city or as a mill, but is now no longer in use. Cordoba had (as so many of the cities here in Spain) a huge Juderia, where Jews lived until they were expelled at the start of the Inquisition. Both Seville and Toledo had synagogues. Toledo´s were closed when I was there, but here are some shots of the one in Seville.

The walls had the beautiful plasterwork, then inscriptions in Hebrew. One that is still visible is the donars´name!

I stayed at a small Hostal in the Juderia, and it was an amazing place, located in an old muslim (mudejar) building, built around courtyards. All of the cities here are built around plazas, where you find cool outdoor cafés and can get a caña, or small beer for a couple of bucks and sit there for hours. I am experienced! The other thing that I´ve tried over and over again to capture in pictures are the fact that the orange trees are FULL of fruit! There are oranges literally dropping on the ground all over the south of Spain! It´s really funny. I haven´t had the guts to taste one yet, because people literally ignore them! I don´t know why..

One night I was having dinner and the couple at the table next to me invited me to join them. What a fun evening! She was from California, a nurse, and he was from Scotland, a psycology professor. They had married, and were living in Scotland but looking for a place to live where it was warmer! We had such a fun evening, and I was reminded again of gifts. It was just enjoyable. We stayed at dinner for over 3 hours!

The next morning I headed for Seville, where I am now. Everytime I think I have found my favorite city, I get to the next one. Seville is just a great place. This area (the old city) is full of little plazas, cafés, small shops, and wandering streets with random fountains! This is the hallmark of the city, called the Giraldi tower. It is what is left of a mosque, which was demolished to build the city´s cathedral. The rumour here is that the city fathers got together and said let´s build something so big, people will think we´re crazy! They succeeded. It took 200 years, and styles changed some, so it has different parts, but it is amazing. You can walk up this tower, and I did this morning. The views are great. I was up by the bells, and yes, they still ring them! Here it is at night....

And during the day!And the front.....with T..

After a refreshing lunch of a caña and paté, yum.. I then went to the Alcázar, where both Muslim and Christian rulars have lived and built. It started as a fort in 913, the was added on to in the 11th and 12th centuries by the Muslum rulers, then, in the middle of the 13th century, the Christians took over and added on in the 14th century. In 1480 Ferdinand and Isabel had their court here, and the gardens were created later. It almost has to be seen to be believed. The best word to describe it is sumptuos! Wow!!! The plasterwork is amazing. Then you get to the tiled and painted areas.

And I think my favorite part was the garden!

Well, I´d better go, before they make me buy this computer! Hope all is well with you guys.

Oh yeah...I forgot one of the best parts of Seville...I got to do my laundry! I have clean jeans. Not that you want to know, but did you know you can wear your jeans for a full month in the winter before they start to get stinky!

Tomorrow I head to Gibralter, where I hope I can see the rock!

Earline