We woke up Tuesday morning to the gray skies and more rain, which was less than pleasant but we tried to have a good attitude.
Our first stop was the Plaza Espana. This large open plaza half surrounded by a semi-circular building was pretty impressive. It was built in the late 1920s for a World's Fair, which sadly ended up flopping because of the Depression. This was envisioned as a place where people would come and just hang out, and I think they are trying to revive that atmosphere now. They are in the middle of a lot of construction/refurbishment work, as right now the place doesn't really see much use. With it being early and rainy, there weren't many people around when we were there, but I could just imagine the place on a warm summer evening - completely packed with street performers and merchants and people just out enjoying the weather and the atmosphere. Being here in the crappy weather really made us want to come back when it was nice, because we thought this place had the potential to be really great. We loved it even in the rain!!
Our next and final stop in Sevilla was the Alcazar - an old Moorish palace that is now an official royal residence of the Spanish king, the oldest palace still in use in Europe (don't tell anyone, but before going we didn't even know Spain had a king). This was a really cool palace - Definitely different than most that you see in Europe - and we were glad that Sarah got to see this palace along with the more traditional version in Paris. Since this was a Moorish palace originally, it has more of an eastern design with lots of archways and tiles. In a lot of ways it reminded us of the places we saw in Istanbul, and even though the place was pretty small, we really enjoyed it.
After leaving the Alcazar we grabbed our luggage and headed to the car and drove off toward Cordoba. About five minutes into our two hour trip the clouds parted, and we had dry weather the rest of the trip. Something about Sevilla. One interesting tidbit - we saw these large bull billboards in several places on the side of the road at several places during this trip:
This large black silhouette is a semi-official mascot of Spain, and can be found on all kinds of souvenir items. Turns out, it is an old advertisement for liquor. A company had this as their symbol and placed the giant bulls (along with their name/logo) all over the Spanish highways. In the 90s the government decided that they were a distraction (not sure why) and ordered the company to take them down. The people protested, though, and fought to leave them standing. The government eventually compromised, letting them stay but forcing them to have all the promotion material removed, so now they are just all black. It was fun to keep an eye out for them as we toured around the countryside.
Our next stop for the afternoon was Cordoba. This town has really just one thing to see, but it is a doozie: the Mezquita. This is an old mosque that has been oddly converted into a Christian church. The Moors built the mosque when they were in control of the area, and the style is really cool - there are hundreds of double-arched columns that have an alternating red-white color scheme. As you walk in all you see are rows and rows of these arches:
After conquering the Moors, the Christians wanted to show their dominance over Islam, so decided to convert this into a church. The problem is that everyone knew that this place was special, and didn't want to harm the arch design. The compromise that they came up with was to basically cut a hole out of the middle of the mosque and build a church there, right in the center. So, as you walk along the outer sections of the interior, all you see are the arches and columns and some remnants of the mosque. But if you go to the center, you suddenly enter this large cathedral section, with all of the standard European features like the choir and altar. 
It was a little bit odd, but I must admit that they did a pretty decent job of merging the two styles. I still think it would have been better to leave the Mezquita as it was, and just build the cathedral next door or something, but I guess this worked out okay in the end. We really did love this place, and it was by far Jenna's favorite stop on the trip. You would not believe how many pictures we have of these arches!!!
After poking into a few souvenir shops, we headed out of town with our fast food dinner (we defiled our bodies with Burger King) and made our way toward Granada, our final stop on the trip. We arrived pretty late in the evening, so there wasn't too much to do, but Jenna and I decided to head out and see some of the town that night. Sarah was feeling car sick from the ride chose to stick back in the hotel.
We walked around the main city center, and it was kind of cool because there were a ton of people out and about. We saw a few of the minor sites - like the statue of Isabella agreeing to fund Columbus' journey - then grabbed some ice cream (in December!!) and strolled around the streets. The best part was stumbling upon a little square that had a small market set up for Christmas. The shops weren't selling anything too interesting, but there was a large tent with a huge nativity scene that was pretty cool. FYI, apparently there were several conquistadors and some Spanish peasants at the birth of Christ. The best part of the square, though, was the bike-powered carousel. We felt pretty bad for the guy, but thought it was a great concept!
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