Tryp Gallos Córdoba

We got up at 11am and drove to the old city of Toledo for a tour of the Cathedral. The cathedral was built in 1226 and took 267 years to complete. It was soooo beautiful. Shae was a trooper again. She hung in her stroller for our walking tour of the cathedral (over an hour). We headed up the mountain side so Mike could get a large format shot with the big dog camera. I hope the pictures turn out!

We left Toledo and headed out on our 3 ...

So we left Seville at a more reasonable time of the morning, but still meant getting up at 7h30am... this early morning certainly have not made this seem like vacation...

we went to Cordoba and really theonly thing to see there is the La Mezquita - beautiful... we will upload pics when we can get to good internet services.... but really once you have seen this site... you are done with ...

... if that bothers them?...the fact that tourists are only interested in the antiquities? Remove the Jewish Quarter from any European city and they’re pretty much like Duluth with more graffiti. Cordoba was the capital city of Spain in the Roman Empire, and home of two of its best-known Emperors (Hadrian & Trajan). Their Archeological Museum is small yet has some nice things. As in most southern ...

... drivers drink beer and munch on seriously bad but tasty pork scratchings .. .... Its stiflingly hot even with the top down..I slather on more suncream...roll down the seat and rest in the shade.

Tired and hot I finally arrive in Cordoba. A network of cobbled streets and shaded boulevards - at first impression it is a very attractive city. But once again i find myself encountering a maze of one way streets and dead ...

... to care.

As I walk back to the train station, I'm taken aback by a peculiar thing. A small van full of oranges is blocking the street, and a few men with sticks are bringing down the fruit from the trees. The pavement and the curbs are covered with oranges, and walking here is dangerous because they are slippery. I watch every step I take, and slowly march away.

... a roll We moved onto another bar, drinking more Rioja until we finally died !!! Trust me, as much as we have our dodgy GPS, it wouldn't let us leave Granada. Maybe it wanted us to see more, but we had to leave as a plane was awaiting. And Finally Was the Mezquita worth the wait? Oh yeah. Was it good to be drinking Rioja? Oh yeah. Was it good to be back in Spain? Oh yeah. And still we need to go back as there is still loads to see.

... to Morrocco, people from Southern Spain tend to have darker complexions, and really, look more "Arabic". The language is still Castillian, but the accent sounds a little more like Latin American Spanish except they have a tendency to speak in "half-words", which makes it a little difficult to a foreigner to figure out what the heck they're saying. On the drive to the hotel I could tell immediately that I was going to love this city. Everything was old and ...

... the tour groups. Alcazar de Los Reyes Cristianos - 4E I got back to town and hit the next stop, the Alcazar. It's free on Sunday. Hmm.. Not that impressive but the gardens are really pretty. As I walk the gardens, I run into Flora and her husband. Rewind back to Madrid/ Madrid to Porto. This is the couple that brought there foldable bikes with them to Madrid/Spain. I was on the same bike tour they were on. And they overheard me talking to others about ...

... to Italy. This trip was much too fast for me to actually see anything. What it taught me though was that I need to go back to Spain and, next time, stay there for at least a month. Any shorter, and I wouldn't get a good feel for the country, especially because all of the cities are so different from one another. And, I didn't even get to go to Basque country, or Galicia. So, next time, more time and more cities. I can't wait.

... had dinner before heading back to my hostel. I got to the hostel to find my roomie asleep (10.30pm) so I couldn't read in the room. I went into the gardens (they had gardens) but there were no lights, just tables and chairs. So I went into the lobby just near the reception and found a comfy chair and read for an hour, until they turned the lights off. Right in the middle of a paragraph the lights just went off. I asked them if I they could keep them on, but they wouldn't ...