Alcalá Week 8

My new haircut in Real Alcazár!

• This past weekend was a group trip to Andalucía, one of Spain's autonomous regions covering most of the south. The forecast called for rain and unfortunately it turned out to be correct, but that was the only damper on these otherwise amazing cities!

• Our first stop was Córdoba to see La Mezquita- a mosque converted into a Cathedral, but it looks more like a church was plopped into the middle of the building. When the Catholic monarchs kicked out the Moors out of Spain in 1492, many mosques were outright destroyed, so it was actually quite lucky that this particular one was only modified, because the mosque portion is impressive! Double red and white striped arches are held up by 857 individually made pillars that are not quite the same height. My favorite part was a wall of bricks, each inscribed with a different Arabic signature- the creators of the pillars!

Some of the arches, I tried to capture how extensive they are!

The decoration was so intricate!

• The cathedral is kinda lame in comparison... it sneaks up on you since it's only open on one side and very narrow. The ceiling is vaulted and domed (as opposed to the flat ceiling style of the mosque portion), with a huge organ and over the top art behind the altar.
  

Gonna go with "meh" on this one

The ceiling was pretty cool and I bet that organ is LOUD

• We got back onto the bus after only a few hours in Córdoba so that we could get to Sevilla before the day's end. Sevilla is the capitol of Andalucía and the home of the Don Juan and Carmen legends (the former being a womanizer who repented later in life by joining the monastery and the latter a sexually independent woman killed by her scorned husband in a cigar factory--> both true stories, I believe)

• We awoke Saturday morning to a constant drizzle! The Real Alcazár was our first stop, I am learning that many cities have "alcazáres" which I choose to make synonymous with "royal christian hangout". This particular one was built in the imitation of Moorish style, a design my tour guide called "kitschy"- but I liked it! One major difference is that the Muslim religion prohibits the representation of animals or humans in its designs (so you focus on God), but the Christians slapped the lion symbol of Castile-Leon on everything they could get their hands on. All the architecture was very elaborate and intertwining and a very nice shade of royal blue.

One of manyyyy

• We were allowed to explore the royal gardens on our own, which I was happy about. "Los jardines" were a series of courtyards and open parks packed with orange trees, tiles and fountains. There was also a hedge maze and an elevated walkway for a nice bird's eye view. Everything looked super green in the rain!

In the hedge maze

• Next was the Cathedral. It's the 3rd largest cathedral in the world and contains the "remains" of Christopher Columbus and one of his sons, Hernando. That's in quotes cause I guess there's less than a gram of him left and DNA testing states that there's only a 30% chance it's actually him. I feel like I've talked about churches a lot in this blog, so I'll just say that I saw artwork by Goya, Zuburán and Murillo and let the photos speak for themselves. Oh ps the Giralda (bell tower) was part of the original mosque and was used to call Muslims to prayer 5 times a day, now it chimes the time and you can see all of Sevilla from the top.

Columbus's tomb

A statue of Mary holding baby Jesus that has something to do with Semana Santa

• Ok now for my favorite part- flamenco! The dance I saw had 3 people on stage- a guitarist, a singer/clapper and a woman who danced. A lot of flamenco is stomping really fast and keeping beat with your feet and hands. The dancer was covered in sweat by the end and a look of sheer intense concentration literally never left her face. Occasionally the singer would yell "guapa! guapa!" (beautiful). It was awesome.

• Sunday we toured Maria Luisa Park, which has a lot of outdoor statues and trails to walk, plus the Plaza España! It's an elliptical plaza surrounded by a really neat building with mosaics representing all the Spanish cities. Also, a Star Wars: Attack of the Clones filmed a scene here, which is pretty cool. (Click here to watch the scene!)
  

Plaza España

These statues represent (from R to L) the 3 stages of love: infatuation, consummation and abandonment. I chose to be the fourth stage: desperation!