Sevilla

This past weekend, February 12th and 13th, was our group trip to Sevilla. Sevilla is located in Andalusia, which is the very south of Spain. Typical weather for Andalusia is extremely warm and sunny; however, Spain is also going through this bizarre weather streak.To our dismay, for the first time in a VERY long time Andalusia was predicted to get snow! Luckily, Sevilla only had rain, but it was still disappointing.

We arrived in Sevilla on Friday only for it to begin pouring on our walk to the hotel. Most of our plans were delayed due to rain, but we did manage to get a tour of the very impressive catedral. The catedral de sevilla is the oldest gothic catedral in Spain and the third oldest in the world. In this catedral is the "tomb" of Christopher Colombus. There are no actual remains found within the tomb, but the structure is very impressive! True to Spanish form, the "casket" is being carried by four men each representing a different region of Spain during the 14th and 15th centuries. Covering the casket is a cloth marked with the symbol of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Their symbol is a yuk (the wooden arches placed over cattle) across numerous arrows.

Saturday the weather was much better! We toured the beautiful Alcazar, a Muslim kingdom that was later taken over by the Catholics in the 13th century. I have TONS of photos so I will limit it to a few. The building itself was very detailed and ornate, but the gardens were what impressed us the most. Behind the royal home are vast gardens as far as the eye can see! It was breathtaking! I can only imagine how beautiful it must be during the warm months when everything is in bloom!

After the Alcazar, we had a few hours of spare time until our return home. Although we were starving for food, we toured the Plaza de Espana first. The grounds were under construction, but the building itself was pretty, especially the individual titled chairs of each major city of Spain.

Following the Plaza we grabbed some quick lunch and slowly made our way back to the hotel, taking in the beauty of Sevilla and all its sidestreets in the sunlight. Even though seeing Sevilla in the rain in February was similar to seeing California under those conditions, I was still able to imagine just how impressive Sevilla must be in perfect weather!

PHOTOS:

Barcelona Chair at Plaza de Espana

Plaza de Espana

My delicious mid-afternoon snack

Outside of el Catedral de Sevilla

View from the tower of el catedral

Tomb of Christopher Colombus

Inside the catedral

Entrance to the catedral

Inside the Alcazar

Wall/Gardens of the Alcazar

Gardens of the Alcazar (these look fake now but I swear they are real)

More of the garden

Beginning inside plaza of Alcazar

Valladolid

I spent the weekend of February 4th-6th in Valladolid, a town north of Madrid in the Castilla y Leon region of Spain (the region my company promotes). At the FITUR convention a few weeks ago I was introduced to a gentleman, Alberto, who works at the company headquarters. After spending the week at the convention, Alberto invited me to spend a weekend with him and his children in Valladolid. (Alberto and his family live in Miami briefly, so they speak pretty good English.)

Friday, February 4th I took the Renfe, Spain's train system, from Chamartin train station in Madrid directly to Valladolid. Alberto picked me up at the train station and from there we went directly to pick up his two children from school.

His son, Sergio, is eleven years old and speaks very good English. He is quite keen on history and is extremely intelligent. He was my primary tour guide throughout the weekend and loved feeding me little facts on Spanish history. Our first discussion was in regards to the United State's involvement in WWII and how he considered the Japanese as cowards for attacking a country that wasn't even active in the war at the time. Too funny!

His daughter, Marina, is eight years old and speaks English; however, not as well as Sergio. She was my comedy for the weekend, doing anything crazy to make me laugh!

Friday night we took a tour of the park and stopped quickly for churros con chocolate before heading back to the apartment for dinner and homework.

Saturday was my guided walking tour of the town. Although quaint, the town has quite an interesting history. I learned many things, from the controversy with King Felipe to the coincidence of Cervantes' death.

At the time of King Felipe's birth, it was a tradition that once the newborn child was taken outside their house, whichever church was closest in the direction the child was facing would be the church they belonged too. Unfortunately for the king and queen, the church closest in the direction of their main entrance was the peasant's church. In preparation for Felipe's ceremony, they had a window constructed that would look out into the side courtyard of the castle, also containing the entrance to the royal family's church. Today this window is now barred shut; however, the story still stays by its side.

Cervantes, the most famous Spanish writer known for his work "Don Quixote", actually died on the exact same day, month and year as the great William Shakespeare. Coincidence?

Saturday evening we went bowling at the request of Sergio and Marina. Although most of Spain is not as modern as back in the states, they did happen to have a glow in the dark bowling alley similar to an outdated Townline.

Sunday was my big surprise! Alberto had arranged a tour of a winery in the Ribera del Duero region of Spain. The Ribera del Duero region is one of two major wine producing regions of Spain. Ribera del Duero, a short drive from Valladolid, is the large red wine producer, while la Rueda is the white wine producer, located south of Madrid.

We spent the several hours leading up to my departure in Penafiel touring the local area, as well as the famous Protos winery. This winery proudly produces one of the late Pope John Paul II's favorite red wines! After an hour tour of the winery and storage facilities, we had a real tasting! Believe it or not, my cocktail serving definitely paid off because I was actually able to distinguish the tastes within the wine! I was very proud of myself. And need not worry, I purchased a bottle to bring back home! =)

From the winery we headed straight to the train station and I arrived in Madrid three hours later!

PHOTOS:

Spanish Countryside

Winery (my camera died so there aren't a lot of photos from here)

Gates to the winery

Old-fashioned car (for grampy)

Selections at the market: I believe there are pig hooves, a cow nose and tongue.

Bullring in Penafiel. I was told the balconies were auctioned off for every event

The famous window of King Felipe

Valladolid town plaza

Catedral de Valladolid

It's Official

A month ago today my plane from Boston landed at Barajas Airport in Madrid!

So sorry that my blogs have been delayed. By the end of tonight I will have you all caught up on my last two excursions! =)

Reina Sofia

In Madrid, there are the famous "Triangle" museums. They are the most important three museums in the city that form a triangle to the south east of the Retiro. This triangle includes: The Prado (the Louvre of Madrid), Thyssen, and Reina Sofia. Since I have to visit the Prado with my history class, a few friends and I decided to visit the Reina Sofia last Saturday.

The Reina Sofia contains all contemporary art within the city. It is the most recently constructed of the three museums and the building itself is quite a piece of contemporary art. The most famous painters found within the Reina Sofia are Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Goya. Of course, Guernica by Picasso is the most famous work within the museum.

Guernica is the only painting we were not allowed to take a photo of, so I have plenty of amazing photos from the museum! I am posting a few of my favorites below. Sorry that there are more of Dali, he's my favorite!

The colors in the photo were just amazing in person!

Portrait of Sonia de Klamery, Countess of Pradere

Hermenegild Anglada- Camarasa

Mujer en Azul

Pablo Picasso

Chain Gang

Jose Maria Lopez Mezquita

Personal Letter by Dali to a friend. In it he includes names of his friends, one being Bunuel, a famous movie director.

Still Life by Moonlight

Salvador Dali

The Enigma of Hitler

Salvador Dali

I have no idea what this was named or who did it, but we all really liked it!

The Girl at the Window My Favorite!

Salvador Dali

The full Reina Sophia building. The two glass towers on each side are actually the elevators to go from floor to floor!

As promised....

Pictures of Toledo

Sidestreets (This was the only one blogger would post in the correct position)

A painting in our last synagogue I really liked

This is by far the only way we got around in Toledo. The streets are so intertwined that the maps really aren't as helpful as you would think. Pluse because it was a Muslim city, all the houses are dull and ugly on the outside, the beauty is within. So its very hard to tell which rock building you are suppose to be entering haha

Panoramic tour of Toledo

Me!

Inside one of the synagogues. Those are herradura arches, a muslim design, inside a jewish place of worship!

The beautiful cathedral!

Toledo

I figured I would catch up on some blogging instead of reading my rather dull cinema packet...

Last Friday was our first group trip of the semester. At 9:30 a.m., all eighty-three of us piled into two large buses and made our way to the beautiful town of Toledo. The town is one of the only places in the world that at one point in time muslims, cristians, and jews lived together peacefully. From the architecture throughout the city, visitors can piece the timeline together and view the influence each group had on one another.

As we pulled into Toledo, we were all stunned at this beautiful, medieval town. Although it is small, Toledo is filled with history! There is a large catedral located near the middle of town, a monastery near the outskirts, and two synagogue to the southwest (I forgot how to spell this in English and had to look it up lol). Additionally, in between the two synagogues you will find the museo del greco, which is actually a house similar to El Greco´s that was turned into a museum. Unfortunately this museum has been under renovations for the past six months or so and we weren´t able to go in. We were able to go into the church which contains the famous painting, The Burial of Count Orgaz, by El Greco. We weren´t able to take photos (although one person did and I have yet to get ahold of it), so I have posted an internet version of the painting.

Now a little history on El Greco. El Greco, or "The Greek", was actually Doménikos Theotokópoulos; however, this was clearly too difficult to pronounce hence the nickname. He was a famous painter who is known for his dual scenery (depicting two different scenes within the same painting), realistic colors, and elongated figures. El Greco was very confident in his art and considered Michelangelo´s work on the Sistine Chapel somewhat unappealing. When El Greco heard of the construction of El Escorial in Spain (which I will visit later in the semester), he traveled to Spain in hopes of proving his talent within the chapel. Although he never painted in El Escorial, his work was distributed throughout many churches within Toledo, a major city at the time.

Now, The Burial of Count Orgaz. When you first view this painting, you notice the dual scenery almost instantly. Below is the count´s mortal death on earth surrounded by all his family and friends, while above is the count being welcomed into his new life in heaven. As you will notice, Mary sits just below the count´s spirit to the left and Jesus is to the right. Directly on each side of the count are two angels (I can´t remember their names at the current moment) welcoming the count into the afterlife. Just below the angel on the left you can spot a man holding keys dangling from a string...this would be Saint Peter.

The most interesting aspect of the death scene below for me would be the gentleman starting straight ahead in the painting. All the figures in the painting are concentrated on the count except for this one. This figure is actually a selfportrait of the artist himself. As in many works of art of this time, the figure staring straight ahead in the painting is the actual artist placing himself in his own work.

We also went into the catedral, which was absolutely stunning! And freezing I might add. Photos were forbidden in there as well; however, because little sunlight was able to filter into the catedral, I doubt any photos without flash would have given the catedral justice.

After our guided tours, we were given two hours of free time to roam the quaint town. Unlike Madrid, Toledo still follows the afternoon siesta, so many shops and museums were closed during our spare time. Therefore, we walked through the winding streets taking in the beauty of this ancient city.

As many of you have heard me complain about this week, the only downfall to Toledo was the streets. Because asphault was not readily available in the early seventh and eighth centry, the people used small, round rocks to construct their streets. Although pretty, this is not the most comfortable walking surface especially if you are wearing Converse senakers. Of course being the intelligent person I am, I neglected to pack my running sneakers due to lack of space. Therefore, by the end of the day my feet were in immense pain. During the rest of the weekend my feet continued to spasm in pain and yesterday I was forced to purchase new running shoes. (Which ended up being 120 Euro Nike sneakers because regular shoe stores aka zapaterias only carry boots fashonable sneakers without support.) My feet are starting to feel better, so hopefully in a week or so they should be back to normal!

I´m posting from work so I will put up photos later this evening, as well as a post about my afternoon at the Reina Sofia!