Madrid, photos

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Bonita Andalucía

After spending nearly 8 weeks here (!) and having visited North Eastern and a bit of central Spain, I have to say that Southern Spain––the province known as Andalucía––was the most stunning to me. We traveled first to Granada where we visited a church that was specifically built as the resting place for the two most prominent rulers of Spain:  Fernando and Isabel. There we actually got to see their caskets as well as the edifice built specifically for them.

The city of Granada may have been my favorite. There were white stucco buildings everywhere stacked up on each other with open courtyards and stairwells leading up to open rooftop terraces. They had orange trees lining the streets and each building was painted a light pastel color of yellow and pink. Also, in the distance you could see the mountains and they had snow on them, even though it was like 60º walking around the streets, crazy!

In Granada, we also saw La Alhambra, which I’m actually learning about in my Spanish Art class; it was really neat to see it in person. It’s a structure that was actually originally built by the Arabs when they occupied Spain so there’s a ton of Arab architectural influence (as well as throughout the entire city). However, the Spanish added on to it when they occupied Spain years later so it’s a mix of cultures. There were beautiful gardens there too. On our first night in Granada we went to dinner in a cueva (cave) and after dinner there was Flamenco dancing, which was incredible. The dancers were literally three feet away from me on the stage and when they stomped the ground with their heels little woodchips were chipping off the stage (that’s how intense the dancing was!) It was definitely a cultural experience.

Next we traveled about two hours to Córdoba, which was a smaller city but was home to one of the greatest Cathedrals. Similar to La Alhambra, the Cathedral at Córdoba was actually first a Mosque built by the Arabs and then turned into a Cathedral by the Spanish. I think this was my favorite Cathedral I’ve seen (and I’m sure I’ve seen nearly ten by now haha) because inside there were hundreds of arches that resembled an aqueduct. There were over a hundred columns and it was hugely impressive.

Sevilla was next, which definitely rivaled Granada for my favorite place in Spain. As in Granada, these beautiful orange trees lined the streets and were pretty much everywhere you went. We actually thought about picking one but when we asked Jesús what the protocol was on that he said that no one touched them because they were apparently super bitter. In any case, Sevilla (known as the capital of Andalucía) was filled with horse drawn carriages in the streets and palm trees everywhere. We saw the Cathedral, which is the third largest in the entire world (after The Vatican and St. Paul in London) and we also got to climb the huge tower that looked out over the city. In the Cathedral there were original paintings by Goya, which were also amazing to see. Afterwards a group of us explored the city a little and we found this huge park right in the middle of the city. The coolest thing about it was how overgrown it was so once you walked a few feet in you felt like you were suddenly lost in a forest. Also, we didn’t actually find the park until dusk so it gave it an entire new look in the darkness (and brought out the bats too, but they were kind of neat to see). Lastly, we traveled to Mérida, which is a small city, which is home to roman theatre ruins. While these ruins were awesome and extremely old, I still think that the cities of Granada and Sevilla were more appealing to me.

This weekend is our last weekend home and then we travel every weekend for the rest of the semester, which is super exciting. Only a week until the Canary Islands!

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