Hello Ishbilya (Seville)

Seville is the largest and most populous city of Andalusia. Its river is Guadalkivir, the same one that goes to Cordoba as well. Magellan departed from Seville in 1519 and went around the globe with the help of Arab navigators. During the Islamic rule Seville was under the Almoravids and then Almohads. I was mainly interested in the old section of the city, with the Moorish heritage. So that is where I went, namely to Alcazar, an old Moorish palace that is being used now by the royal family and as government offices. Next to the Alcazar is the Gothic Seville cathedral seen in the picture to the right from the neighboring Alcazar. Notably, the tower of thee cathedral used to be a minaret of a Moorish mosque and is called the Giralda.

The cathedral itself is Gothic in structure and is the biggest such church in the world and the third biggest of any church kind. Funny they tell you to take your hat off when you enter but they don't mind women entering with skimpy clothes. Another historic Moorish structure near the Guadalkivir river is the Torre Del Oro, or the tower of gold. I passed by it but did not bother entering it. The third picture to the right shows a typical street around the area of Alcazar. I saw many horse carriages that take tourists on tours in the old section of town.

There are many McDonalds and Starbucks and other American restaurant chains. I walked around and saw a wooden structure that was made by some German architect that is shown in the picture to the right below. The picture to the left shows a building downtown that imitates the Moorish architecture style and there is a cafe below it. The food here is good in general and I liked the tapas dishes which are small dishes that allow you to sample many kinds of food instead of having one large plate of one kind.

My favorite tapas plate was the eggplant one which was made with tomato sauce and ground beef and tasted so good. I walked to to the river and saw people biking there and some were paddling kayaks and canoes. But the temperature was so hot that I could not stand in the sun for long and was constantly looking for shade. I entered the Gothic cathedral as there was mass in session because it was Sunday and spent a few minutes inside. It was quite ornate and full of statues and pictures. The Giralda distinctly showed that it came from a Moorish mosque of the past although its top was altered where statues and crosses were added to give it its Gothic character. I did not have much time to see more than this, so that sort of concluded my Andalusia's tour. I had to return to the hotel and get prepared to return to Toulouse to spend one last night there before going back home.

I checked out of the hotel and filled the car with Diesel oil and then returned it to Enterprise at the airport. The three days cost me 112 Euros total for the car, and the gas cost another 50 Euros more or less. Overall the car had very good mileage. I drove about 810 km total with that car, so the gas cost was quite reasonable. On returning to Toulouse I did not have much time left, I just slept that night and had to wake up at 4 am to head to the airport as my flight back to the US was at 6 am. I took that flight on time and made it to Amsterdam, which was my first stop. In Amsterdam I had more than five hours so I decided to get out of the airport and take the train to downtown Amsterdam for three hours or so. My next blog talks about what I saw in those three hours in Amsterdam.