Wednesday, June 24th- CADIZ
Parque Genoves- Beautiful botanical gardens
Playa de la Caleta- The "Beach" at low tide
Holy smokes, it was a long day! We got up at 6:00am to get up and watch the sun rise over the Andalucian Penninsula known as Espana!! We rolled in around 8, and were off the ship by 9:30. We explored the city by foot for the entire day... Here are the highlights (briefly- I'm in a park with free Wi-Fi, it's 3:30am- with someone of course, and my computer is about to die!)
Botanical gardens- they have the prettiest parks here!
Castle by the beach- we were at the beach twice.. the first time the tide was all the way out with all the boats laying on the sand, and three hours later it was all the way in and about 4 feet up on the castle wall! We explored the tide pools at low tide and had a blast.
Flamenco (SUPER talented) & Sangria out on the town!
Overall I think we walked over 10 miles today and I've been up for 22 hours... uh oh! But loving it!
Thursday, June 25th- Sevilla & Cinco Siglos
 | Catedral y Giralda- Seville This is the day after getting only 2 hours of sleep and being on tours allll day. I was so exhausted! This is the third largest gothic cathedral in the world (it goes way beyond this picture to the left of the screen) |
What a day! Wake up at 7am after two hours of sleep, bust to Sevilla to see the Alcazar and Gothic Cathedral (third largest in world), eat at a nice Spanish restaurant, bus to Cordoba, and see a really relaxing Jewish-style concert in an amazing botanical gardens by night. So tired!
I encountered a “gypsy” at our first stop that tried to read my life and told me it all in Spanish and did something with what I believe was rosemary, so I got a sprig of that for 2 Euros, which apparently came off as too little and I’m just like yeah, whatever lady- you deserve nothing I’m giving you the only coin in my pocket so you’ll leave me alone! She would not stop it was ridiculous!
Everyone in my tour group had too much fun the night before/too little sleep so it was a rough tour with a lot of history and everyone was hungry, but it turned out alright with the concert! It only cost 5 Euros to get in and we got a free CD with it! We were right on time but all the seats were taken so we sat at a table with two Spanish moms and their daughters! The girls with me that somewhat knew Spanish tried to converse and it was really funny and they were like the nicest ladies ever! They were serving wine so we got a glass- it turned out to be a very classy & relaxing night!
Another incident- one of the people I was with was going to buy a coke from a street vendor. He also sells frozen stuff and had a Tupperware of frozen candies in front of him. He smiles, points to us, points to the candy, goes “shhhhh!” and winks and walks to the other room… All three of us assumed he meant shhh, don’t tell anyone I’m going to this room to pretend I don’t see you so we all take one, then he comes back with tongs… uh….. he was pissssed! Haha All we could say was SORRY!!! We felt pretty guilty :/
Friday, June 26th- Cordoba
 |  |
Cordoba- 1. outside of the walls of the original city 2. Catedral de Cordoba- Huge mosque with a cathedral built into it
The hotel we were at didn’t have any clocks in the room so I had my friend ask the front desk for a wake up call and she was going to come knock on my door to wake me up after that. Well she apparently knocked for 2 minutes without me hearing, and called my room and it rang 25 times (she counted) before I answered! Haha Guess I was tired!
We toured the city today, including another Alcazar (fortress/castle for the king), gardens, and an ENORMOUS mosque/cathedral. (The mosque was transformed into a Cathedral but the mosque was so large that the cathedral inside of it only takes up 1/10 of the total building!) It was so large that 40,000 people could pray in it at the same time!!!! We got some tasty gillato, illegally picked an orange from the trees that line the street (but they are bitter oranges used to make marmalade that actually tasted okay) and headed back to Cadiz.
Tonight we hit up the beach for the sunset, which was beyond beautiful, and got dessert/sangria at a restaurant on the way back!
Overall, the trip to Sevilla/Cordoba was okay- it got pretty long and I don’t care all that much about all the history. I’d much rather go for a hike or even wander so I’ll be keeping that in mind! Unless something amazing happens tomorrow, the highlights of Spain include- the beach at low tide with the washed-up boats and tide pools, the concert in the garden, the sunset. Tomorrow we are planning on going up in the tower of the cathedral, which we hear has an excellent view, spending some time on the beach, and possibly buying some souvenirs since I haven’t gotten any besides postcards yet!
COMMENTS??? click here |
