Cordoba y Sevilla

Okay so i'm trying to catch up! So a couple weeks ago, specifically March 27th to the 29th, we had our first CIEE program trip down to Andalucia to the cities of Cordoba and Sevilla. We left friday morning early early early and started on the 6 hour bus ride down there. We stopped in this tiny little town thats know as part of the route of Don Quijote where we got to see the molinas or windmills that he "attacked" as he thought they were giants. if you dont know the story of Quijote 1.shame on you because its famous and good and 2. that last bit won't make any sense but anyways. We finally arrive in Cordoba which is much smaller than I had imagined, but very beautiful nonetheless. We begin with a walking tour led by Fausto, our director's husband and an all around black hole of knowledge about anything and everything Espana. We then went into the Mezquita, the main attraction in Cordoba. [the pictures of the tall red and cream arched building is the MezzyQ] Mezquita is the spanish word for mosque but the unique thing about the one in Cordoba es que it incorporates all three of the major religions that clashed there throughout Cordoba's past. The main foundation of the building is Moorish because the south of spain was the last to fall from the Moors, and that part is all the red striped arches. In the middle of the building the Catholics came in a built a huge Catholic open cathedral altar type thing and then i can't remember the third religion to influence it...
anyway later that evening we headed over to Sevilla [about an hour away] where we ate and went to our hotel just to start over early the next morning. We began saturday with the gardens of Sevilla, starting off the day right with a statue honoring Christopher Columbus, and then Fausto led us on another walking tour, this time of Sevilla. We went to the Mezquita there which was completely different, it looked a lot like the Alhambra, the major palace in Granada, with a lot of moorish influence. We then had lunch and returned for a visit into the huge, amazing cathedral there. [the pic is of it at night] The picture of the statue of four kings carrying a coffin is inside this cathedral and just happens to be Christopher Columbus' tomb. awesome. The rest of our day was free and as always we ended up wandering and getting to know Sevilla better. Sunday morning we went to the main gardens and another big building thing that was really pretty but quite obviously at this time my attention span was dwindling AND i was getting sick [not a good combo for me] Sevilla was def up there with Granada as one of my favorite places i've seen so far.
<---oh and ps mom that is def a picture of a fairy house. the spanish faries from sevilla live there. i saw them.