Although we docked in Cadiz, my mom and I took an inland trip to Sevilla, 2 hours away by bus. It was an all day trip that only gave us about 3 hours to tour the city. (4 hours devoted to commute and 1 hour to lunch. Unfortunately, we had to be back at the boat in the evening so it could set sail. Otherwise, we would be able to see more of the sights.

So... I woke up at 7:15 am. My sisters got room service while I went to the Front Desk to complain about the annoying phone call last night. Then I went with my mom to go to the Seville Tour. My sisters went to the Jerez De La Frontera one (the Sherry factory one). This is cuz the Seville one was way expensive so only people really really interested went.

2 hours on the freeway later, we were dropped off in Seville after going by all these buildings/houses built by different countries for the Iberian-American Expo in 1992. Guatemala had a blue and white smiley faces one. :-)

In the Alcazar Real (the focus of our tour, and Real = Royal en espanol), I took a lot of photos.

Courtyard:

Facing other side of Courtyard:

Intricate ground work... mosaics of stones lain sideways but were worn smooth. We also saw the Royal Chambers. Some sections were still under archeological excavation.

Ceiling:

I learned that the Lion and the Castle motifs were Christian elements while the Arabic Script ("God is the only winner") inscribed on the wall over and over again were the Muslim contribution. Alcazar Real had a lot of mixing between Christian and Muslim design ideas.

Fountains... I found one off to the side via a tunnel. I ditched the tour group along with my mom to briefly explore this area. Inside was a long rectangular shallow pond/reservoir. The air was so much cooler in there than the hot Spanish sun outside.

We rejoined the tour group as it made its way to the Jewish Quarter.

The streets are really narrow there. We passed by many shops but finally stopped at one of them. Five minutes later, I knew why. I saw the tour guide just reach into the fridge and pull out a bottle of water and began drinking from it. He chatted with the owner. They must have had some special arrangements. Anyway, people shopped. I got my postcards and went outside. There was construction going on across the street. Some men were at the top, receiving bars/poles via a pulley from another on the bottom. One of them kept waving and smiling at me. He also kept saying Hola to me. Alas, my Spanish is probably as good as first day of class Spanish... so I didn't say anything. I just smiled.

Next was a Cathedral.

There are lots of them in Europe. But this one used to be a Mosque. It was rectangular instead of cross-shaped. The architecture is very gothic. It was one of the last gothic cathedrals built.

There's an alligator/crocodile hanging on the ceiling. It used to be a gift from an Egyptian ruler to a princess in Spain. After it died, they hung it where everyone could see it - that is, just outside the cathedral, in the courtyard. This one here is an artificial one that replaced the rotting real one:

The altar was HUGE! I think it's the HUGEST altar I have ever seen! Possibly biggest in the world. 24 meters tall, 8 meters wide. More than 1000 statues - the exact count is disputed.

On one of the walls was a stolen piece of painting created by Murillo. So what happened was a thief cut a piece out of the canvas and disappeared with it. Some years later, in NYC I think, a Dutch merchant recognized it and returned it to the cathedral.

We also saw Christopher Columbus' tomb. Mainly ash, but still some bones. They did DNA testing to prove that he was the father of two of Christopher Columbus' sons buried in the Cathedral. Hence, likely that this is also the real Christopher Columbus.

Our last stop before returning to Cadiz and the ship was the Spanish Pavilion. I guess everyone else was tired but my mom and I ran outside to take photos. Every province of Spain was represented on the HUGE semi-circle structure/building thing.

Through an archway: