Day 15 Seville Spain

Well good news on the home front, after my second dose of antibiotics and a plentiful breakfast I'm up to about 90%. After breakfast we had a tour of the Seville palaces. We boarded a bus with some of our group that were not FOP's and ventured out to the palace we went to yesterday. After a short walk back to the bus we drove a few minutes to the next palace that has been host to the Kennedy's and other high end officials. The gardens in these places are amazing and ancient. Our guide was a romantic and a poet, he spoke very rhythmic and slow but his English and knowledge was amazing. I cannot remember all he taught us but felt like I had been in a history class. We need up in the palace of Alcazar which has been here since the 1400,s and was currently occupied by the royal family. The palace is a tribute to tolerance, there are parts that were part Muslim, Jewish and Christian. And back in the day they all got along and shared this place at different times, until money and ideology change it forever. Some of the palace dates back to the 1400's and is very well preserved with 24 karat gold leaf covering a lot of the wood. The whole palace is original with very few exceptions. After the tour we found a cafe to have drinks and tapas,  it is very hot today and we needed a break before walking back to the ship to have cocktails and get ready for dinner. There is supposed to be a crew talent shown after dinner tonight that we are looking forward to. Our waiter that we have adopted is singing one of the last parts and he gave us a little sample of his voice at breakfast, it was pretty amazing. Here are some pics from today.

Around the plaza were many of these alcoves each one representing the different counties of Spain. The little cubbies next to the benches are book shelves and normally hold books you can read, one of the first public libraries in the world. They are gone right now because they had a concert here a few days ago but will be replaced in the coming days.

They call this the mushroom you can actually go to the top and walk around.


One of the many narrow streets in old town.


The lady on the right was the last person in the world to hold the total of Empress.




The tapestry is from the 1500's and is hanging in the elements. There are many of them through out the palace.


This sculpture is of a flamingo dancer and it is carved in stone, the details are amazing. I have never seen anything like it, the detail is amazing.

Everything you see in white is plaster from the 15th century, amazing!


The wooden doors are made from cedar from Lebanon from the 15th century and still look amazing.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jewels of Iberia

Image
We will begin our adventure on September 20th Flying to Lisbon and meeting up with my sister Janice who is living in Portugal for a year to try it out. We will be staying with Janice and her husband Bill for a week before getting on the ship. They have an itinerary that takes us back up to Porto and the Douro Valley for a few days before dropping us back off in Lisbon where we will meet up with Joe and Cindy Larkin and embark on our ship, The World Navigator by Atlas Ocean Voyages. Stay tuned for updates,  I will try and update daily as long as the wi-fi works. The Title of our Cruise The Map of our Cruise
Read more

Day 17 Marbella Spain

Image
Medical Update: I went to sick bay a few days ago and received antibiotics for the crud I picked up earlier on the trip that had spread to my lungs. I am feeling much better and the lungs are much clearer.  Today we arrived in Puerto Banus and had to tender into the harbor where we caught a bus for an hour and a half drive to Marbella Spain. We arrived at a very small winery to have a tasting at an incredible location that was a monastery that was built in the 15th century. The owner, who is an architect, rebuilt the monastery into a winery and used the old chapel as his barrel room. It was amazing. The wine was very good and we purchased a bottle of red wine for dinner tonight. Then we took the bus to town which was incredibly crowded with tourists. We walked around for about an hour and saw a famous bull ring and an amazing bridge that spanned a very deep gorge that was about 300 meters deep.  Then we headed back to the harbor to catch the tender back to the boat to pack for...
Read more

Day 21 Travel Home day

Image
Today we slept in and did not say goodbye to the Larkins as they were already on their way to the airport. Hopefully Joe's head hurt as much as mine did when I woke up from all the fun we had last night. After breakfast, we packed our bags and checked out of our room. We had the bell person stow our bags so we could go for a walk. We found an old area of Barcelona called the La Villa De Gràcia district. Our guide from yesterday told us about it and said it hasn't changed much in over a 100 years. He was right! The streets are very narrow and the people are older and there were not too many tourists. We stumbled upon a small square where some older non-FOP's were dancing away and gave us a great show to watch while we sat at a cafe and enjoyed some wine. Then we had to start our way back to the hotel to catch the bus to the airport and start our way home. After checking in and going through no less than three passport control areas, we were able to make it to the gate and bo...
Read more