Travelogue - Spain - Part One

I. Love. Spain.  I am in love with that country!  The people, the food (tapas!), I speak the language, the olive trees that non-stop cover hundreds and hundreds of miles over mountains and through valleys (did you know that Spain supplies almost 50 percent of the world's olive oil?  I didn't), the tiled entry ways and wainscoting, tiled plaque address and street names, pudding-thick hot chocolate with churros, flower pot packed court yards/patios (I need to amp up our front patio for next year), the ancient churches, cathedrals (so huge and glorious no matter how small the community - museums in themselves), alcazars, narrow cobbled streets, walled cities,  gosh I was just enchanted.  I can't tell you how many churches we entered the whole trip.  We thoroughly explored eleven cities, stayed over night in nine of them and drove hundreds of miles.  And we walked so much; if you have a Fit Bit or other step counter, we easily averaged 25,000 steps per day.  And I wore a dress every day!  I have never had so much fun dressing or packing for a trip.  On any other trip we have gone on, I agonized over matching tops and pants and would bring too much and usually dislike what I ended up bringing.  For this one, I packed a bunch of play dresses and four pairs of good walking sandals.  I wrote out the order I would wear the dresses and I didn't have to iron anything.  No agonizing and I looked appropriate and well dressed but comfortable no matter where we went.  And the dresses will be a post in themselves - I can't wait!

We fell into a schedule of sorts for each day of exploration.  First of all, Spain gets started late, takes a big break mid day where everything closes, and eats dinner super late, like 9 or 10 pm.  So we followed suit making our days look something like this:  We awoke around 9 am, breakfast at 10ish, exploration and activities until our first cafe break around noon where we would sit down at an outdoor cafe and drink diet coke with lime and people watch.  More exploration, lunch at 2ish, exploration/activities until 4ish for another cafe break, continue activity, helado/gelato around 6 pm, activity until 8 or 8:30 (when the Americans would dine) where we would seek out a restaurant and eat a late dinner.  After dinner we wandered the plazas and streets watching the Spaniards just get started with dinner and night life.  We were usually in bed by 1 or 1:30 am.  We kept this up until Italy and where we modified it with earlier dinners and earlier to bed.  I took tons of pictures but I will try not to bombard this post with all of them - just 3 or 4 (or more) per city we explored.  First up, Sevilla:

 Our hotel was down this narrow winding street.

 The people live in the balconied apartments in these pics above and below.  I love the canopies that are hung between buildings in the commercial areas which add shade and probably some weather protection as well as making the street really cozy to walk through.

Picked up our rental car and drove a few hours east to our Next stop below, Cordoba:

Cordoba in many parts of the city is winding streets lined with white washed houses with painted flower pots hanging on the walls and from window sills.  Every May they hold a festival where town folk compete for best walled and flower potted display.  How I would love to see that!

 The Mezquita above and below.

 Inside the Mezquita - the combining of muslim and Christian architecture

 Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos

We mapped many of our walks in Spain's towns seeking out plazas/piazzas .

 This gentleman made me a custom bottle of perfume from a concoction we both came up with all for just 10 Euros!

 Two tomato soups from this region of Spain; bottom Salmorejo topped with ham and egg and top, Gazpacho.

And below, next stop:  Granada

 View of some of Granada from the Alhambra

Here we are on one of our diet coke breaks and I wanted to remember this view, the smell of the flowers near me and the sound of the man singing playing his guitar right next to us (not pictured).

We passed this charming house as we climbed the steep city streets to reach an area where we would have a huge vista of the Alhambra and city.  Below I am following Dan as we climbed many many steps that day.

 View of the Alhambra from another part of the city.

We stopped in this charming square flanked by a church for our diet coke break.

 Many times when we ordered our beverages in Spain we were served tapas along with them at no extra charge.

Next stop: Baeza and Ubeda, Renaissance towns where we spent a few hours each on our way to Cuenca where we would spend the night.

I loved the little doors within large doors here and all over Spain.

 Olive trees for miles and miles and miles.

 Kids in Baeza going in to class at their school.

Typical street in Ubeda (accent over the U).

Next stop:  Cuenca 

 One of the hanging houses built into stone cliffs in Cuenca.

The center of the old part of Cuenca above.  The town was preparing for a huge festival.

 Final stop for part one:  Toledo

 

 As we were waiting for the dinner hour, we had so much fun watching middle and high schoolers meet up in the town square and interact.  They were adorable to observe.  More below.

I stalked Miniature Schnauzers - my favorite breed.  We saw them everywhere we went in Spain, more than I've seen anywhere.

 The night view of the Cathedral outside our hotel window and the same view the next morning below.

The cathedral in Toledo, like many others inside was just amazing and awe inspiring.  I'm not really placing many pics of the interiors in this post but plan to do a church/cathedral post in itself I think.

 The street of Toledo are all cobbled like this - love!

Dan drove our car down many streets like this in several towns and it was absolutely harrowing, especially the corners.  And you can't write about Toledo without mentioned the painter El Greco.  We viewed many of his works in a couple museums and his masterpiece, "The Burial of Count Orgaz", 16 x 10 feet this painting, in its original place and form at the little parish church of Santo Tome and from the year 1586.

This is not a photo I took; you aren't allowed to take its picture.

And to end this Part One post, look at how the ice cream vendors tempted us - it worked; we had one between lunch and dinner every day!  Incredibly dense and creamy.

More olive trees as we drove to our next town to explore - Avila!  And there were also miles and miles of sunflower fields that had passed their prime with drooping heads that had not yet been harvested - how magnificent it must have been those fields of gold!  Stay tuned for Part Two.