Lisbon and back into Spain

June 28 Seville, Spain

Did not do much today but walked a lot!  

Went to the Plaza de Espana.  A huge place that is made of brick and decorated with many many tiles.  Around the lower part are benches with tiles representing various cities around Spain.  Very nice.  Much of the walls, ceilings and columns are also tiled!

Walked around some of the parks near by and then headed to a shopping/restaurant area.  Interesting as not many people out today, not like yesterday as it was Sunday.

Seville sidewalks are mostly made with small rounded river stones.  Must have taken forever to put down.  Very different from the 2 or 3 inch cobbled marble (I think) stones for almost all of the sidewalks and many of the streets.  Both very attractive.

June 27 Seville, Spain

Arrived early afternoon after a relaxing morning.  Only a 1 hour trip.  After a call to hotel for room, but do not know if they had one or not, as no one spoke English, and my Spanish is not enough yet to figure it out!  But found another place, just took the taxi driver a while to find!  Could be a problem!!!!!

But not.  Fairly close to everything.  

Dumped the bags and off to wander around the city.  Walked through a park, and then onto the river front.  Took a 1 hour cruise along the river,  huge boat, maybe 10 people!  But nice, and wind was cool.  Actually an ok trip.  Saw the 1992 Expo site, and a few other sites.  Just very relaxing.

Then hit the bullfight arena.  I had hoped to see a bull fight tonight but there is not one this week.  Took a tour around the arena!  Amazing, prices range from 30 euros to 150!  Also did not know that there are really 6 guys to a team that are fighting a bull, 2 teams of 3, only one is called matador.  That was news.  Now I really want to see one!

Stopped for beer on way back to hotel.  I have given up staying off the beer as it is so much cheaper, and better than Coke.  I am sure I am getting nutrition from them!  

Seems that Seville also has very fancy entry ways into houses.  Many very nice ones.  Lots of tile work as well.  But again there are some streets that are very narrow.  And I swear that streets that are just wide enough for a bike to go down, and have a name!  That is my excuse for missing so many of them!  Believe it or not!

June 26 Cordoba, Spain

Well went for the luxury and caught a taxi after giving the hotel a call.  Turn out to be great.  Quick shower and then off to bar for a drink.

Up this morning and off to the Mesquita - a mosque that had been converted into a Cathedral.  The orginal Mosque part was built in mid 900s with the Christian part built over the Muslim in mid 1200s.  The arches of different stone a brick and the size of the place is difficult to describe.  Not sure how many arches but there were a lot.  Many little chapels around the outside with some remaining Muslim parts to building.  The courtyard was huge as well with orange trees everywhere.  Also 1 old olive tree, not sure how old but the trunk did not look in great shape.

The streets in this city are quite something.  The sidewalk, on each side of road, are about 6 inches wide!  Have to be careful and not have your toes sticking out in the street or you would loose your toes.  They are so narrow!  But very interesting!  I have found that the doorways into peoples houses are very fancy!  Have tried to take some pictures but they do not seem to do them justice! 

A lot of Roman ruins in the city.  Columns, bridge, walls and mill. 

Then in afternoon off to the Medinat Al- Zahra.  An ancient Muslim site.  Built in the mid 900s, and was only occupied for about 75 years.  After this the town of Cordoba grew, with many of the artifacts and then later many of the building stones were taken.  Not able to see the Royal section as under reconstruction but pictures make look great.  Interesting that the arches are similar to the Mesquita.  It is a huge place and they say that they have only dug up about 10% of it.  Many places are still being dug out and many pieces laid about, looking like they are trying to piece together.  The interpretation centre was also an interesting building.  Made of white concrete and iron sheet, with a very low profile.  Think maybe they were trying to replicate the 2 to 1 rectangle of the Al-Zahra.

On way back saw 1/2 of a round about!  A new subdivision that has streets, lights but no buildings.  The half of round about did not go anywhere, and only had 2 streets running out of it.

Cordoba is a must see in my list!  Great place!

June 25 Madrid, again, and Cordoba for about and hour, Spain

Well the earliest train I could catch to Cordoba is 9.35 PM!!!!  So a day in Madrid.  So off to the Prada Art museum.  The line up was huge.  Turns out they have a temporary exhibit of Turner's work!  Ok.  So spent a couple of hours wandering around the rest of museum.  Many arts pieces as well as sculptures.  Goya, Rembrandt, Mori  etc!   The interesting part was the vault in the basement.  Here they had "decorative art"  which means pieces of table ware and decorations to be placed about the house.  Very nice.  Much crystal, precious stones, but also some large jade and some other dark stone pieces.  Must be expensive!

Then spent more time wandering the street, sitting in a park.  Very nice.

Then back to train station.  Will be interesting to see what happens with a 11.30 pm arrival.

June 24 Lisbon, Portugal

What a great bed and breakfast!  Mercada!  Was able to keep key and leave bags in room for the whole day!

So off to the Belem tower!  Great place, but again many stairs on small spiral staircase!  5 floors!  And remember the Europeans count the first floor as 0, so that is really six! 

Tower has great views of river, and was built in the 1100, I think, way too much information!  Over loaded.

After walked along the river.  The stone sculpture of a boat and people is huge.  Inside is a video presentation of the history of Lisbon.  "A city of cities".

As the city was occupied by many different people, the Muslims, the Crusaders, Arabs and the list goes on.  Some of each has been retained in different parts of the city!  Was a great video as explained why the area around the Plaza Commercial is completely on a grid street system.  This area was destroyed by the earthquake in 1755, and this is how it was rebuilt.  Most other areas are still streets going in every direction and many round abouts!

Spent most of afternoon in a park!  I had a 10.30 pm train back to Madrid.  The overnighter again!  But not so bad, talked to a guy from San Francisco for about an hour and then to sleep, most of the way!  Interesting as there was an elderly couple with their bags and not one person offered to help.  I did, and everyone clapped!  Too funny!

June 23 Lisbon, Portugal

Caught the train to Sintra, a small city outside of Lisbon.  Here went to visit the Castle of the Moors. 

This castle was built in about 800 AD and then added to in about 1100.

It sits on top of the hill overlooking the city.  You can also look up to the Pena Castle.  The Moorish Castle was great!  Interesting that many of the castles are similar.  Towers with look outs, and many port holes facing the various directions.  Would have been tough to attach this castle as the ground is steep and very rocky.  Yet again, many steps, up and down, and along the various walls.  There is currently an archeological dig going on in the Church cemetery and a couple of other places in and around the Castle.  Interesting that it was much cooler, yet only about 500 meters above sea level.

Pena Castle was used during the mid 1800s by the royalty of the Portugal.  All the rooms had a lot of furniture of the time!  Many rooms with separate rooms for the King and the Queen.  The ballroom/dining room was actually fairly small with ceiling that may have been 9 feet!  Certainly not like the Palace in Madrid.

Wanted to go to the National Palace, but closed on Wednesday.  Others on the bus found out the same thing on arrival.

Went for a wander around another part of the city today when I returned.  This is a very hilly city with many of them very steep.  I walked up one street, but on the return trip down a different street, found a tram that is designed to go up and down the steep parts.  Apparently there are 3 or 4 in the city.

For dinner went back to the same restaurant I went to last night!  Last night, steak, fresh raw carrots, fries, soup (large) and a beer for 8 euros!  What a deal.  Tonight.  Different steak.  Thought that I ordered the special of the "cafe" but turns out it is 'cafe" or coffee!  Had coffee beans in the sauce.  But also came with jumbo shrimp, with mushrooms and roasted garlic!  Interesting combination, but was very tasty even if the cut of beef was not that great!

Tonight, 10 euros, including the beer of course!

Started to upload new pictures to Picasa, but the internet shut down on me.  Not sure what happened.  Guess it will have to wait until I get back to the Madrid train station.