Seville

Tuesday was spent in transit between Portugal and Spain. It's a beautiful city, and there was lots to see. Tuesday night we got in fairly late, but we went for a walk and had dinner before heading to bed. 

Apparently the largest wooden structure in the world. Now if only the structure had some discernible use or purpose?

€8 worth of ham, red wine, and salted tomatoes with cheese. It was ridiculously good. I could have eaten those tomatoes for every meal. 

In the morning, we took a walking tour of Seville, then went back to revisit our favourite parts. First up was the cathedral in the centre of town. It's a gothic cathedral, built in the 15th century on top of the mosque that was built there in the 12th century... Built on top of the Roman ruins there. Space conservation, yo. Anyway, it makes for a really unique structure, with so many different styles and influences in one building. 

The minaret - the bottom two thirds are Arabic, but the top third has the bells and statues of a Catholic church. 

View of Seville from the minaret. 

The tomb of Christopher Columbus! Or someone who shares a bloodline with him. No one is all that sure. 

Gargoyle! First I was excited, but then I thought of the cartoon, and then I thought of Anderson, and then I was sad. 

This pic shows a little of the diverse styles of the place - Arabic minaret and arches, gothic stonework on the right, and a bit of the old Roman pieces at the bottom. 

These orange trees are in the courtyard beside the cathedral. What's interesting about them is that   apparently, the whole crop of oranges every year is rounded up and sent to England, where they're used to make orange marmalade for the queen. 

Next, we went to the Plaza de Espanas, in the middle of Parque Maria Luisa. It's a huge pavilion meant to signify the relationship between Seville and the Americas. It has a lot of historical information about Spain and the quest for the Indies there, and the park is a huge, beautiful green space in the middle of the city. We spent a fair bit of time there, sitting in the shade and chilling. 

The plaza. It's a bit silly, but after so much time there everything has a tendency to remind me of Vegas. I keep expecting things to be made of plaster. 

The fountain in the plaza. 

The shady spot we hung out in for a while. It was nice and peaceful. Until some teenage boy was goofing around and fell in the water. Then it was hilarious. 

Today, we're taking the train to Granada, where we'll see Al Hambra, supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the world, and a world heritage site. We have two nights there, and then it's on to Morocco!

WTF Lisbon?

Traveling is wonderful! You get to see new things and experience a new culture. You also get to see some things that will leave you scratching your head. Here are a couple from Lisbon:

- Accordion players and dogs. Apparently a thing here. We saw at least three. When I saw an accordion player who didn't have a dog I was tempted to call him an imposter. 

- The sidewalks here are very narrow. Like, two people can't walk side by side narrow. So when you come across someone going in the opposite direction, one of you has to step into the (also very narrow) street. Except for where they're very wide - nearly eight feet across. Which is great! That means you can park your car there. So the actual space to walk is quickly reduced back to "too narrow for two people at a time". There was a lot of walking in single file in Lisbon. 

- If you listen to the radio, you can hear recent music out of North America. However, if someone is playing music - at a bar or an event or whatever - it's invariably top forty stuff from at least three years ago. I guess people just prefer the older stuff? They obviously have access to new music and choose not to listen to it. 

Cheating because it's not actually Lisbon:

This was in the bus terminal in Faro. It is the first three feet of a bus, sticking out of a wall. I choose to believe that it crashed through and was left there as a warning to other buses not to mess with the terminal in Faro. Don't start things you can't finish, buses. 

Leaving Lisbon

(It's possible you've noticed by now that I'm also overly fond of alliterative titles. Again, apologies.)

We were only there two days, but we did and saw so much that it seemed much longer. After our action-packed first day, we tried to take day two a little slower, but wound up running around nearly as much. We started the day with a walking tour organized by our hotel, which took us all around the neighbourhood and showed us quite a few interesting and unique spots. 

After walking for three hours, we had lunch at a little Portuguese place recommended by our tour guide, where I accidentally ordered pork liver. It was actually pretty tasty, but my brain wouldn't let me get over the fact that it was liver, so I didn't quite finish it... I'm not sure why I can't get over that! I must need more practice. 

We were bagged after the walk, so we headed back to the hostel and did some planning and booking for the next few nights. And I may also have taken a nap. That's becoming a common theme in my days so far. I'm not sure if it's mild jet lag, or exertion, or the fact that I may be coming down with a bit of a cold, but I've been down for at least a little while every afternoon. 

After the planning session, and my nap, we struck out for tram number 28, aka "the most beautiful ride in the world". I was pretty underwhelmed until I realized I was looking in the wrong direction... There some incredible views to be had from the other side!

One of the views from the tram. 

Once we had completed "the most beautiful ride in the world" (and accidentally staying on too long so that we had to take the tram aways back into town), we visited the Castelo Sao Jorge. It's an old fortress dating to the 12th century, and it offers some truly gorgeous viewpoints of the city. The castle itself is pretty cool - you can walk around the walls almost completely, which was cool and also gave me some serious vertigo in a few places - but there is a total lack of the signage and information I'm used to in North American museums and exhibits, so it was a little confusing and less informative than I might have liked. Still totally worth it for the views though! 

Seriously stunning views from the Castelo. 

Cats all over the Castelo - there were at least ten. 

Views from inside the Castelo. 

The prettiest peacock. Just look at him! He's beautiful!

We're leaving Portugal today - I'm actually writing this from the bus out of the country! We've booked two nights in Seville next, followed by two nights in Granada, and then it's off to Morocco for about ten days. It's pretty busy, but there's do much we want to see and do it's best to keep moving!

Lost in Lisbon

Blogger has eaten this post twice now. Suffice to say I've gotten lost a lot in Lisbon. Including immediately upon arrival, still carrying my bag. At midnight. Regardless, it's been good. The city is great, and the hostel is super. Anyway, I haven't the patience to create this a third time, so have some photos!

The hostel terrace. It's cozy and comfy, but Lisbon is quite windy, so it can be chilly!

The windy ass steep hill we had to climb THREE times while looking for the hostel. We searched for nearly an hour only to realize that things in Lisbon are much closer than they appear, and we had overshot by a huuuuge amount. 

St. Jerome's Monastery. Our first site, and absolutely stunning. So much amazing stonework, it was breathtaking. 

A view of the whole monastery, with Empire Square in front. Also some kind of NBA promo? It was a weird day to be touring the area, between the NBA thing and some kind of fun run there were thousands of people around, and the metro was completely packed. 

Torre de Belem, the lookout used to guard Lisbon from attacks by sea. It's lovely, but there's a winding staircase to go up with only space enough for one direction at a time, and two dozen tourists convinced their direction is correct pushing against you at any time. It was challenging to get up and down. 

We also had delicious custard pastries for lunch, and a dinner at a restaurant called 151 that was absolutely fantastic. It's been a good first day, even if I can no longer keep my eyes open, and my feet are nearly shredded from all the walking around in circles!

Airports, Part III of IV

We're waiting for our third and final flight, out of Frankfurt to Lisbon. All of our flights were delayed, by increasing amounts, leading to a lot of anxiety about our connections, and we rushed to the terminal each time to find that a) our plane was delayed and b) European airports have this weird aversion to publishing actual gate numbers, instead only listing terminals and then posting the actual gate at a later time. We've spent a lot of time staring at boards that say "TP 579 - delayed - A". Terminal A has nearly 100 gates, and it takes 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other. So... Take a shot in the dark and then hope you're not rushing to the opposite end of the terminal when they finally do release your gate. 

In good news, we had just enough time in London for me to buy fistfuls of British candy. I now have more candy in my carry-on than anything else. Also, they're calling the first people for our last flight, so hopefully we're actually going to make it there!

Fair Warning

I'm the worst at titles. You should know that going into this. Expect a lot of nonsensical, useless titles that provide no context and are often excruciatingly lame puns. Apologies in advance.