Trip to France, Spain and Portugal
Mike and Judy Henderson
September 1 to September 25, 2017
I'm going to leave the map on each page describing this trip so you have an idea of where we are.
9/16/2017 We arrived in Cadiz in the morning. Cadiz is actually not our destination today - Seville is our destination so we won't see anything of Cadiz except the port area. Note the cable-stayed bridge in the picture. Many of the more modern bridges in Spain seem to be cable stayed.
After breakfast, the buses were waiting and took us to Seville - it was nearly a two hour trip. Here we are after arrival in Seville.
The first place we visited was the Spanish Pavilion, built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 held in Seville. Each county had a building but the Spanish facility was extraordinary. It's built in a semicircle, with a plaza and fountain enclosed. It was hard to take good pictures because of the size and because I couldn't wander away from the group to find the best location to take pictures. But I tried to capture the size and scale of the facility.
In addition to the size and scale, the other thing that struck me was the quality of the workmanship in all aspects of the facility. All of the work was of very high quality - brick and stone work, the paving stones and their patterns, and the woodwork, including carved woodwork.
It's a very impressive facility.
Next we went to the Royal Palace.
It was hard to capture the essence of the palace in pictures because I could only capture small sections of it at a time. It was very ornate, with a Moorish influence from the time this part of Spain was under control of the Arabs.
The entrance courtyard.
An interior atrium area.
Showing the ornate tile work.
Then we went to the Seville Cathedral. The initial impression of the cathedral is it's size, both the height of the vaults, and the area covered by the cathedral. Most cathedrals are in the shape of a cross. This one is essentially square and covers a lot of area. At least two regular cathedrals could probably fit into this one. Here's a floor plan that shows how the cathedral is organized.
Look at the height of the vaults in this picture and the size of the columns - you can get some sense of the size and scale from the people in the lower part of the picture.
The altar is huge and golden. It is gated off with an iron fence.
Here's what appears to be the altar that is used for ordinary mass.
At one side of the cathedral is a memorial to Christopher Columbus. We were told that some of his ashes are in the memorial.
I include this picture just to show the size of the columns supporting the vaults.
By then, it was about 2pm and we went to a restaurant for lunch. We were seated in the balcony so I could get this picture of the group.
We were entertained by a tango performance
We arrived back at the ship a bit late and had a buffet dinner - then off to bed.
9/17/2017 About 1:30am our ship passed the Strait of Gibraltar. I woke up and looked out the window, but we were some distance from land and all I could see were lights. I checked Google maps and we were in the middle of the strait, which is probably 10 or more miles wide at this point. I could not see any of the rock of Gibraltar.
We arrived in Málaga early in the morning.
We docked at the cruise ship dock - a very modern facility obviously designed to handle large cruise ships.
While we were waiting to disembark the captain was talking with some of the passengers.
And I was snapping pictures of some of our fellow passengers.
As we got off the ship, I saw this map of Málaga which I'll put here so you can orient on the city.
And a closer look at the old part of the city. You can see the cathedral and the fortress on the map. Our hotel was very close to the cathedral, a little below where the red number 3 is on the map - great location.
We took a bus tour of Málaga. The first place we went it to the top of one of the hills around Málaga where we had this panoramic view of the city.
From here we could see the bull ring. I believe that killing an animal for entertainment or pleasure is immoral.
Then we went to the port and beach area. I got this shot of Judy with the ship we just got off of in the background.
From this location, I took this shot of the Málaga cathedral. One of the defining characteristics of this cathedral is that it was never really completed. It was designed to have two towers but only one was completed. The second partially completed tower is indicated with the arrow.
Here's another view of the unfinished tower, taken later.
This is a sign on the beach area, used in many of the Málaga tourist brochures (without the garbage cans, of course.
There were lots of these little birds in the area. We were told that they were brought as pets but escaped and now are a problem, crowding out native birds. They sound like the parrots we have in our area.
By then it was about noon and we went to our hotel, the Molina Lario, right in the heart of the old town.
It was too early to check in (although the hotel staff was working hard to get rooms ready and deliver luggage) so the guide took us on a walking tour of the old town. We walked by the Alcazaba de Málaga where they had excavated a Roman amphitheater.
Then we walked by the cathedral.
A view of the entrance to the cathedral.
A group of young women were walking by in "costume". We were told that they were part of a wedding group and that this was traditional. We encountered this in Germany where the young women in traditional costumes sell things like candy to help pay for the wedding. In Germany I'm pretty sure it's just a traditional thing because the young women can't possibly raise enough money to pay for a wedding with the small candies they were selling. I assume the tradition is similar here.
Finally, a view of the other side of the cathedral.
After the tour, we went back to the hotel but still couldn't get into our room so Judy and I went to lunch at one of the little cafés in the area.
After lunch we went to the old fortress and wandered through the many gardens and towers. I won't try to give you a tour of it, but here's Judy on one of the towers.
That evening was the farewell dinner in the hotel. I took a bunch of pictures but, unfortunately, many did not come out very well - out of focus, bad lighting, etc. I put the ones that came out fairly well below.
Here's a picture of the maitre d' and two of the waiters. They did an excellent job of handling the large group.
I thought the meal was excellent. Very tasty and the presentation was very nice, especially when you consider that they were putting out over 60 meals in a very short time. I went the the maitre d' and asked him to pass my complements to the chef. He called the chef and I thanked him in person.
Tomorrow Judy and I head to Grenada to see the Alhambra.
Our adventure continues here