These Are The Days Of Our Lives: Trip to Spain Day 3

When you get breakfast free with your stay at a hotel you never know what you are going to get. Well, at the hotel by the side of the road breakfast consisted of toast and orange juice. I heard complaints about that breakfast for the entire trip. Oh well, it was food and what they didn’t serve us, we ate back in our room – fruit and yogurt.

Our journey for this day was Seville. It was just under a 2 hour drive from where we were. Jake downloaded the maps to his new Kindle Fire and we were able to use that to find the place pretty easy. This is where I need to say that we had a very strict budget for the trip which meant most of the time we stayed in hostels. This particular hostel called itself a B&B, but it was still a hostel. It was right in the heart of the old city, so the streets were narrow and shops everywhere . . . I LOVED IT! Everything was in walking distance and at night the streets were filled with Christmas lights and little Christmas markets. I love Christmas in Europe!

Ok, I thought I had turned this, sorry. Outside our B&B.

The street we were on.

The reception area of our B&B

Jake and kids' room

Mine and babies' room

Beautiful artwork in the lobby

I love mirrors - in the lobby

The main thing we went to see was an old mosque turned Cathedral. After the conquest of the Spaniards over the Moors, the Catholic church rededicated the mosque as a church. They then changed some of the architecture and added a gothic wing onto the existing structure. In fact, it is quite evident on the outside of the building where the old mosque stopped and the “new” church started. The size of the place is breathtaking, as is the ornate nature of the stone sculptures. As I looked around at the intricate carvings in the stone it hit me hard that this is a lost art. And no modern machine can produce the same result as the old hand sculpted stones. Absolutely breathtaking.

The more modern "gothic" side of the cathedral

The mosque portion. Can you see the old dome?

No one today could produce this

Absolutely amazing skill (PS, the real statue is being restored, so we got the gaze upon this replica)

The most memorable part of our visit to the cathedral was climbing the bell tower. It was 17 stories up, but luckily the stairs were replaced by a ramp long ago. It was 34 turns around to the top (as each turn was marked by a number). Along the way there were windows to see from (or probably places to take a rest because it was a long, steep climb) and little rooms filled with history. Once at the top you could see all of Seville. It was such a beautiful view. And the number and size of the bells was really neat to see. I’m really glad they don’t ring the bells while the tower is open. That would be deafening!

The bell tower from the outside

Seville from the bell tower

The roof of the cathedral as seen from the bell tower

More of the cathedral's roof

One of the domes turned turret

From one of the windows along the ramp up the bell tower

Same window, different view

Some of the bells. The bells were hung like this on all 4 sides of the tower

After seeing the church we ran into 2 different street performers on the way back to the car. One was a man painted green, decorated with flowers and standing in a flower pot. The other was a man who had puppets of a man and woman dancing strapped to his back. His legs were the man’s legs and his arms were the woman’s legs. When he bent over he made them dance. It was very fun to watch.

Jackie and the flower guy

Rachel, Jackie and Sammy with the flower guy

The one-man dancing couple

Here you can see the couple

Here is the man with the couple on his back

One last stop before the car was in front of a beautiful, old building that I don’t know the name of. It looks like it was once a palace but is now probably government offices, based on the UN and Spanish flags out front. But the architecture was really neat, so we stopped and got our pictures taken there.

The fam in front of ???

I wish I knew the name of this building. It was beautiful (sorry its on its side, can't figure out how to turn it)

We decided to eat dinner at a sandwich place in the mall we parked the van under while staying in the center of town. It was a horrible decision. The meats on the sandwiches were cold, including the hot dogs we ordered the little ones, and it was expensive. We should have gone to McDonalds (which was next door). One of the difficulties we ran into while in Spain was the time the restaurants opened. 8:30 is bed time for our kids, so fast food was really our only option for dinner.

Jake wanted to take the kids to see a movie after dinner and left me and the 2 little ones in the hotel while he went out. The movie ended up being a dud, but he was able to take the kids down the street a little ways and get some delicious ice cream, which no one thought to bring back to me. Jake and I tried to go out later after the kids were asleep, but by then everything was closed. Oh well, live and learn.

Here are some random pictures from our time in Seville.