Trip to the south of Spain

Like most of you know, last week I was having a trip to the south of this country mainly because of a wedding, quite a long one (not the wedding but the trip XD), and even that through Portugal it was not so hard. Around 7-8 hours by car and done, a bit expensive to pay so many tolls, but faster than going through Spain sure.

Travelling through Portugal is a bit funny for us due my language and portuguese are closer but we have several "language tricks". For example:
- Everytime we had to pay in a toll we could see "recolha o título" - That means you have to pick your ticket up, but in galego, as in spanish, "título" could mean academic award or something like that XD, so everytime we wanted to go through tolls in Portugal it was more like a graduation from school than paying for the road XDD
- Or when we filled the car with gasoline, it was written: "prema a súa importáncia" or smthing like that ("set the price") which it is pretty close for us to "set the level of importance" XDD
There are more that I dont remember, but it's always funny when you find a new one :P

Well, going on with the trip, the first thing we did when we arrived to Sevilla was to rest a bit before the wedding, slept and the next morning meanwhile people were going to hairdresser and so on.. my brother and me decided to visit the roman city of Italica. Right now it is called Santiponce, but Italica was the oldest city founded in Spain by romans. It is situated 9 km. far from Sevilla, so it was a short trip by car :)

Here you can see some "retouched pics" that I recommend to see in all its splendour (downloading them or making zooms) because thanks to a pc program my brother made them to have cool effects meanwhile uniting several into one. I took away a bit of their quality for an easier uploading but anyway... they are really good!!
Roman theather of Italica:






Amphiteather and rest of Italica:



Amazing pic of the amphitheater, the place where romans did those coach races and fightings:


Bueno, se é o "Kardo Máximo" pois será, quén lle vai decir que non ós romanos!!??

There is a funny thing when we reached to those ruins. There was a guided tour that started just when my brother and me arrived, and we went with all people, in spite of we didnt make any book (it was necessary). Then, we were told: "ok now children on this side, parents on this side" well, after some time of indecision we decided to go with parents XDD
Our guide, a beautiful and talkative girl, was explaining us about the romans and what they made and how they behave in that theater. It was a didactic class of history, and nice to remember all those things almost already forgotten from my childhood.
Later, those children came and did a representation over the scenary touching every way of art romans did over the stage: comedy, tragedy or mime.

Afterwards, the organization made a pic of all of us and I have just received it few days ago to my mail :)

After that educational morning with romans, we prepared for the wedding which took place in the evening in the cathedral of Sevilla.
Originally gothic style, the cathedral was made in the XV century and it is the biggest gothic cathedral worldwide.
Wedding/Cathedral
Check out these 3 pics ;)

Well, I know the moment you would like so see .. me very smart.. tie and so on XDD



That cathedral was nice to see, pity they let "modern" artists to decorate the surrounding area with doubtful good taste sculptures like the ones you can see. It was really full of those ugly "things" around the cathedral...

The inside:


It was nice to see that one of the sculptures inside the church was a "saint" with a sword on his hands and riding a horse... beneath him another figure of a muslim kneel down in front of the almost jumping horse. Down a legend saying something like that fair king liberated Sevilla from the "unfair" and "bad" muslims... Is it me or I still think they are too unfashioned about that stuff?
...I think it's not very right to show swords, threatening poses or roles of submission of other cultures-religions in spiritual places made for praying and all that stuff... what do you think?


Afterwards we went to a fancy hotel to dine and celebrate the event :P

I dont know if you know, but I dont like at all folk from the south. Yes, that folk every foreigner think we have in the whole Spain: flamenco, sevillanas and all that stuff. Well, seems that we couldnt skip that being in those lands, so they brought a band that it was ok for 2 or 3 songs but after that they became terribly boring :S

Yes! "The corpse bride" :) seems it was a request of the couple.




After that, more dancing and music, but this time quite different, pop-rock mostly.
Unfortunately the husband made a bad step and...

Strange: at 3 AM they came with soup for everyone who was hungry! :O

Well, after the party... we woke up early the next day, ate something with more guests and went on with the trip :P visiting more places in the city of Sevilla.
La Torre del Oro




Surrounding of Alcázar:



Plaza de España
Check the ones that seem stretched with attention opening them ;)


These 2 are great!


Situated inside the beautiful and huge park "Parque de María Luísa" it is a monument of "a hug of Spain to all its old colonies"



In the "Lawrence of Arabia" movie it appeared like the british army headquarters and in the Star Wars: Episode II it appeared in the Naboo planet, though digitally made up.




26º in Winter time at 20:00 PM... not normal even for a spanish one like me XD


In every one of those spaces between the columns we could see every one of the provinces of Spain, with a drawing that could be something historically relevant for that place.
As many were not prepared yet, we made a pic of a cool draw, and choosing.. choosing... the province of Burgos had a nice painting XD we would choose our province Lugo, but it wasnt prepared :(


After a very tired day of walking and eating, we went to bed and rest quite well. The next day we decided that staying there and going to near cities but sleeping in Sevilla was a good idea.
So the next visit was Ronda and Utrera, small but nice towns not far from Sevilla.
Utrera










Typical sight of retired workers in Spain: looking at bulding workers in the street XD

Please dress properly :)

Alguén máis veu unha rotonda cun caza de tamaño casi real no medio????

Ronda









On the way we "found" another castle in the distance and decided to stop in the Aguzaderas Castle which seemed to be constructed to protect from the muslims an important source of water.





That day was absolutly tiring after so many things, but there was almost nothing compared to the next day:
La Alhambra
2'5 hours far by car from Sevilla there is the city of Granada, owner of one of the most beautiful places in all the spanish geography: La Alhambra.
This place is an ancient muslim fortress, a huge fortress with lots of beautiful gardens and buildings from the medieval age. I guess you can find easily story and so on in internet, so I will avoid to go into this in depth. I think just seeing is ok, and I have lots of pics, but I tried to choose some few.






Trying to restablish the order of things.. XDD



Yeh my mom is not very good when centering the view of a pic XDD
















Now check out the HDR my brother did:







That was really a tiring afternoon-evening! all time walking and we even lost like 30% of the place!! It was true that we didnt know there was an hour specified in the ticket for a special place inside, but we didnt know. Anyway, we were walking all the time and I think we could see that almost in a rush!
We came back to Sevilla again and left on the next day, saw a bit more in the morning and went through Portugal back again. You have to pay a bit more, but it is worth if you want the trip to be shorter.
Stopping again in some small towns that I actually dont remember very well the names.. XDD
Thanks that sometimes we make pics of the signs that explain what we are visiting :)
Alcácer do Sal




And again I had to visit Fátima my brother and mother didnt visit and wanted to do. I prefered other places on the way, there are many castles and so on... but..





After 6 days we came back home and I still feel I should sleep more hours since I came hihi
It was a good trip :)
Oh I forgot!
It was surprising that in Sevilla I met one estonian friend!!!
I met her in orkut, and when I was crossing a zebra at 5:00 AM I heard my name... and I was ... "huh? who is calling for me in Sevilla?" XD
And I recognized her from that strange community called orkut. I mean strange because seems there are just Indian, Estonian and Brazilian people there hehe
So I couldnt talk too much with Elisa, but I was quite shocked of knowing in real life one estonian friend from the web one night in Sevilla!!
About people there... I can just say that northern people we are so different from them!!
I was hearing people in the night clapping hands and singing... but in the morning.. afternoon.. evening.. ouffh they are tiring!!
When we were crossing that bridge in one of the pics of Sevilla, there were 2 boys that came to me .. and when they saw I was smart dressed and with long hair they said: "hey!! yeh!!! Camarón!!! yeh yeh!!" and starting clapping hands trying that I sang some flamenco like "aiiiiiii aiai ai ai aiiiiiiiiii" XDDD

It was a quite embarrasing moment hihi, but as I already had drunk a bit in all the wedding.. I was in the mood of telling them some yelling so they could go in peace XDD
But those are things that somehow I dont like too much, not their culture of always party and party or flamenco or yelling or bullfightings or their way of talking that I had to ask many times to repeat because I couldnt understand anything XDD
Hope you like it, and now I need a rest oufff such long posts make me to be dizzy XD