The Synagogue, the Mesquita, and the Equestrian Show

After a fabulous breakfast, which includes fresh pomegranate seeds for the granola - yum - we're off in the sunshine to take a look at the ancient synagogue up another narrrow alley, a modest square hall with finely incribed walls.

On the way there's a statue of Maimonides, 12th century Spanish Philsopher, who famously wrote Guía para los Perplejos - meaning perhaps this:

"If a person studies too much and exhausts his reflective powers, he will be confused, and will not be able to apprehend even that which had been within the power of his apprehension. For the powers of the body are all alike in this respect."

Then we go to the the Mesquita and Cathedral, which you enter through an ample courtyard with orange trees and water grooves. A couple of robust dogs fly by chasing pigeons and their owners race after them to leash them.

Then we enter the stunning mesquita part of the construction with low red and white shaped arches. One can easily imagine quiet heartfelt conversations taking place in this shaded and yet airy space

As we walk on, we enter the much more lavish Christian part where a huge central golden alter is surrounded by many other places of worship with striking details on the sarcophagi

 delicate treasures

 and a beautiful and intricate ceiling.

We realize we haven't eaten anything but tapas for several days and decide to have special lunch at La Almudaína on the Plaza de los Mártires. It's a traditional Andalusian restaurant with a beautiful stained-glass ceiling

and filled with large groups of cheerful guests served by old-school male waiters, who look as they they know what they're doing. Soon we're settled with a chilled bottle of local Chardonnay and a plate of grilled artichokes with an interesting oily green sauce, the latter long gone by the time our fish dishes arrive, "rape" a kind of flatfish, we gather, with champignon, and a "merluza" with shrimps. We share and they are both delicious. For dessert the waiter recommends a local delicacy, "Calahorra" a trembling white almond pudding filled with liqoursoaked raisins - a scoof pf strawberry icecream on the side. Incredibly delicious - like one of those cordon Bleau receipes from the 70s. We finish off with a small glass of 'digestif' which tastes as if you'd squeezed out the juice of very ripe, and very sweet rainins. Then we go home to rest.

When we feel we can move again we leave for our horsehow, which begins at 8pm. It is now quite cold, but fortunately the show is inside in a huge hall. We're shown dressage of the stylish Andalusian horses, some of which have their tails ties up in intricate ways and all have decorations on their head and woven into their manes, as well as scenes from Andalusina lives involving horses - farming, dating, and so on. The most beautiful parts are when a slender young woman dances around the horse imitating the prancing way it moves

and when exquisite white horses are make to stand on their hind legs.

We finish the night in an Arabian Teteria, where we order Andalusian teas served in a small tiled room full of cushions. Who knows what's in my 1001 Night in Arabia tea. All I know I don't close my eyes for the rest of the night!

Photos from our day: https://plus.google.com/photos/108088723826036223432/albums/5952875322902312737?authkey=CISm9dKjwsC7fg

On to Cordoba

We have to catch a high speed train to Cordoba around noon and get up reluctantly, bodies aching from all our walking, to press our things into our suitcases - how the contents seem to swell for each stop - have breakfast, and take a last look around to see if we've forgotten anything. The taxi arrives and stops all traffic in the narrow Corral del Rey until we're onboard.
The train station looks like a stadium, super-new, and glistening with the cleanliness and order we have seen everywhere. Spain may be in trouble, but things seem to work remarkably well. Soon we're seated  in the bullet-nosed train, watching a flat rural landscape glide by. The trip is just under an hour, after which we arrive at an equally fine station (ai, Brasil - é a Copa?) and find a cab driver. Our drive takes us through a modern city until we enter the old Jewish quarter, La Judería, where our hotel, Balcón de Cordoba, is located, and where the cabdriver folds his side mirrors in to negotiate narrow streets like the ones we just left behind in Seville, except here the walls are white-washed.
The hotel is arranged around a courtyard with orange trees and French Ludovic in the reception tells us he has upgraded us to a better room. This turns our to be a huge L-shaped apartment reaching halfway around the courtyard on the 2nd floor. We have a sitting room, as well as ample bath and a bedroom, in which an old claw foot bathtub stands ready with towels adding sultanesque expectations to our stay.

Sadly, I sense hardly any of this, because I cannot find my passport. Over and over I stare into the orange folder in which I carry my documents, but it is really not there, and in a frenzy I go through my luggage and then Oswaldo's, leaving our beautiful rooms in total disarray. Finally, having sent various SOS messages to our hotel and to José in Seville, and the Danish consulate in Malaga, I wrest myself away - for Cordoba is waiting to be explored, passport or no passport.
We're minutes away from the famous Mezquita, but decide to leave our visit there for tomorrow when we will have more time. Instead we find a pleasant outside café on the Campo Santo de los Mártires, where we share a Tortilla Española and a toasted baguette with large sliver of tunafish and red pepper and finally a brownie with frutillas rojas. Very nice with a soothing glass of rosé. The city is full of doves, they swoop overhead and we hear them cooing everywhere. On a nearby monument I notice an interesting way of sending a "Doves not welcome" message - check out the spikes on the column:

The Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos is right in front of us and we enter to see the beautiful gardens, with many fountains splashing

and big thick cypresses shorn to resemble colums. We notice several cats, busily looking for something. Mice? we wonder. Maybe that too, but when we go upstairs in the old fortress and follow a sinister trail of blood leading to a several sad clumps of feathers, we think we may have another part of the answer: doves - they're hunting doves - like shooting fish in a barrel.

It is interesting to see the abundance of water in the winter for these places have been built to make the summer bearable. We wish we could see the flowers and sense the refreshing spray of water on a hot day, as we walk around in our winter coats and gloves. Still, we don't miss the crowds we saw recently in Greece at the height of the tourist season. It's easy to move around and get in everywhere, and the weather is fabulous, not cold at all when you're in the sun, but now it's getting dark and we begin to think about returning to our hotel - and check once again for that passport!

We swing by the Royal Horsestables, Las Caballerizas Reales, where we've been recommended a show. We take a look at the installations and buy tickets for tomorrow's show, then return slowly to our hotel, buying snacks and a bottle of Freixanet on the way. 

Inside our warm living room 

I search again for the passport and then settle down to write to the Danish embassy in Brasilia. Oswaldo goes through all his luggage and then says something about checking pockets. I have checked all of mine, of course, but grab the leather jacket I have been wearing all day, and which I have just wrenched off. I feel something hard in a discreet inner breast pocket - the passport. I have been carrying it all day, close to my heart! We celebrate this happy outcome by going to sit on the hotel's roof terrace, under a big gas heater and looking at the lit Mezquita right in front of us with Venus off to the right - and each holding a big glass of brandy in our gloved hands.

Here's a link to the pictures from our first day in Cordoba.

https://plus.google.com/photos/108088723826036223432/albums/5951992308652347761?authkey=CJj7_tr9-9iAcQ

Seville 4th day

Today it's definitely difficult to get up. We slept late last night, and when the alarm goes for Oswaldo to get ready for the last conference day, we both groan and burrow back under the covers. But he has to get up and manages to do so after a while. I take longer, entertaining thoughts of not going down for breakfast, but when the expresso machine refuses to produce anything but steam, I throw something on and go for my coffee and juice (and, shhh, toast and croissant…). Then I hurry back to the room and work for a while on my computer waiting to see what will happen with Oswaldo. He comes back earlier than expected and after a while we get ready to go out. The plan is for him to see the Real Alcázar, but first a little lunch. In the old Santa Cruz area we find a cozy little restaurant and share, yes,  some tapas, and a beer. Then we turn a couple of more corners in those ancient, and always confusing, streets and eventually find the Alcázar. Today it's a little cloudy and there's not the striking contrast between the spice colored buildings and the bright blue sky, which I experienced, but the rooms and garden are still fabulous, and we even discover a whole set of magnificently tiled halls, which I missed on my first visit

We go see the Mercury pond, into which the water is splashing like before, but this time, when we stand by the edge of the water, huge carps swim swiftly to the edge and open their big mouths, hoping for food.

I want Oswaldo to see the gardens, and as we venture further out than I had gone by myself, we come across several peacocks pecking for food, feathers folded modestly along their backs.

One is walking along with a duck and Oswaldo urges the duck, "Come on, man, bite him," hoping that the peacock will spread his feathers

We're very surprised when the duck waddles over to Oswaldo and tries to bite his ankles.

Then we take in the last sights of the castle and leave, admiring a cute little dachshound on our way out, with a nod to Strudel :)

as well as a last look at the Giralda, the amazing cathedral tower.

I want to go to nearby Fnac to find Spanish music similar to what we heard last night, but after listening to several cd's I admit I am unsuccessful in my quest, and we hurry home amidst the splatters of threatening rain. When we reach the hotel entrance, Sergio and Frank happen to pass by from their outing to have hot chocolate and churros. That sounds  like a very good idea and we follow their advice to go get some also, with a borrowed umbrella from the hotel. The chocolate is excellent, but the churros are a little greasy - the fantasy was better than the reality…. Then I spot an equestrian shop where they sell hats and we find one for Oswaldo, like Abel's, which we have admired - and then we go home to rest up a bit.

8.30pm we are out again, on our way to dinner with our friends. We return to the place we went the first night and share wine and various goodies, including a Tortilla de Papas. Thanksgiving is not mentioned. We say our goodbyes, for tomorrow Oswaldo and I go alone to Cordoba for two nights, after which we'll meet Abel and Carlota in Granada.

Seville, Wednesday and 3rd Day

Oswaldo decides to spend the morning with me and we head over to see the nearby Casa de Pilatos - a wonderful old merchant's palace, part of which is still used as a residence by the Dukes of Medinaceli.  The empty downstairs rooms are covered in colorful Mudejár tiles

and through graceful archways we can see the marble fountain.

Behind lies an orchard, with clipped trees lining the collonades and with pruned bougainvillea trunks snaking skywards to spread their blooms on the roof terraces. This must look wonderful during the summer.

There's a guided tour to the upstairs apartments, which are still furnished and where no photos can be taken. The rooms are crammed to the gills with objects (Oswaldo murmurs to me, "..and you think WE have a lot of stuff…"). Most charming are the fairly recent family shapshots  adorning every surface, adding a lived-in atmosphere to the otherwise august room.

Then we head out again to have lunch at the restaurant I'd seen on my first day, the Restaurante Las Escobas, where we pick a table in the sun and order tapas and cold beers from a friendly waitress. 

Thus fortified we head over to the enomous cathedral filling our vision just across the street . It's the largest Gothic building in the world and inside the arches soar 37 meters, reminding me of a visit to Ely cathedral. The same high grey ceilings, although the light in Seville is very different from that of a 1978 February morning in England.

Christopher Columbus' tomb is here, carried by four somber knights

and off in a corner room are a collection of the most impressive church treasures I have ever seen, like this gem and pearl-studded crown

After the cathedral we head down towards the river, passing on the way the restaurant, Sabine, where we will dine tonight with our university hosts, but also this amusing sign advertising a private investigator

We walk to the Plaza de Toros, but have to part ways, when it turns out you can only visit in guided tours, and Oswaldo's free time will be insufficient. He returns to his meeting in a cab while I wait for the tour to start, with a motley group of tourists from all over the world, sitting on a bench in the covered walkway behind the arena. I observe a Korean mom, brand new yellow Vuitton bag slung on her shoulder, who shares burst of giggles with her teenage son while tall, aloof husband looks disapproving. They all take pictures of each other with their Samsung phones.

 A petite guide, toreador red uniform hidden under her brown quilted coat, explains the arena is divided into the shade and the sun sides, with ticket prices at 120 and 20 euros respectively. The arena holds 14.000 spectators.

There's special seating for the Royal family when they here, which is not often, she concedes, when asked. At most once a year.

For the rest of the tour no pictures are allowed. We visit an art gallery with many pictures of bulls being felled by matadors, and vice-versa, along with brutal renderings of horses being gored by bulls. A British lady shares my dismay about the horses role as collateral damage and asks the guide if they often die during the bullfights. "Four horses per fight used to die," she says matter-of-fact, "but no more. They use protection." In another room full of artifacts several stuffed head of bulls are hanging on the walls, most of them with an ear or two missing, taken as trophies by the matadors. There are also several splendid toreador costumes. When the tour is over I return to the sunny pavement, grateful I will never have to watch a bull-fight, but glad to have done the tour, and walk along the river until I turn inland to eventually reach the hotel. I have walked for about six hours. Not bad for a recently broken ankle.

Our host José Domingues Ferreirós has invited all the conference participants to Sabina, a restaurant, we discover, which has been justly praised in Tripadvisor.

and after our dinner we walk through the old Santa Cruz quarter until we get to a flamenco club, where the dancers have unfortunately just finished. But there's a pianist, playing and singing Spanish songs with gusto, and in between songs he chats with the audience.

A lovely way to end the evening and well after midnight we tear ourselves away to pick our route back through the tiny streets. We're surprised and grateful when we actually find the hotel!

Seville, 2nd day

After Oswaldo leaves for the university I check the temperature

and it's a crisp 7 degrees Celsius out there. I give it a little time and head out after 11 when it's a bit milder. I come across a beautiful old house, La Casa de los Pinelo, which is also home to The Royal Seville Academy of the Humanities. There are two courtyards

and two libraries

and two fabulous toureiro outfits!

The first of which was admired by Picasso, who drew this adorable bull

(In all this beauty there is also a frightful collection of modern art. Such a weird contrast).

I walk on through a new set of tiny streets emerging in the Santa Cruz area, where the restaurants are setting up for the lunch crowds and the air is perfumed with fresh olive oil. My mission is to scope out the Bodeguita Casablanca, recommented by a Daily Telegraph writer. It's apparently a favorite of the Spanish monarch, and I have selected it for my lunch with Oswaldo, who today is able to get away from his conference for a couple of hours. He arrives by Tranvia, a cool tram, which glides silently through the streets. The restaurant is not yet busy, and when we sit at a table and ask for tapas, the tough waiter informs us that tapas are only served standing at the bar. On his firm recommendation we share a dish of asparagus - which disappointingly turn out to be big wet white ones, fresh out of a can, with an ominious duo of rosé and tartarsauce - but also an excellent filêt of merluza.

We're surrounded by pictures of bulls and bull fights with bulls getting slain. Oswaldo looks around and remarks, "No wonder the king thinks nothing of shooting a couple of elephants," referring to Juan Carlos' recent safari scandal.

After lunch we walk down to the river Guadalquivir, passing the Torre de Oro

before leaving the river and going round the government palace, San Telmo, where a series of statues on the roof catches our eyes, especially the first on the right who is contemplating a cut off head in his hand...

Our route takes us through a lovely park, the Parque de Maria Luisa, where intent joggers and bikers pass us by, until we get to the Museo Artes e Costumbres Populares. Unfortunately the clothes part is closed for renovation, but there's an interesting exhibit of flamenco costumes, showing not only a replica of a workshop, but also recent bridal gowns used by Spanish brides.

Then it's time for a cold drink in the sunshine

and then Oswaldo has to go back. We part ways and I take the Tranvia back to the Plaza Nueva, from where I cut through yet another set of very narrow alleys to get to our hotel - and get completely lost. Map flapping in my hand, now useless with all the tiny unmarked streets, I have to ask for help in a store, where I buy some snacks for the room, and get pointed in the right direction. Turns out at some point I turned left when I should have turned right. I'm relieved when I find our street and can return to our comfortable and warm hotel room. When Oswaldo returns, cold and tired, much later, we decide we're all dined out and stay in for the night.