Making Excuses

I’m just going to come out and say it: We’re failing in letting you, our fans, know what we’re doing on our European adventure. The simple fact is we’ve been busy doing stuff and seeing things at a tourist pace. We’ve admitted to ourselves that this is neither sustainable or desirable, and February has taught us to slow the heck down.

What do you mean by busy? We’ll, here are some stats for February.

Cities visited: 6. Madrid, Segovia, Salamanca, Ávila, Granada, Sevilla (or “Seville” for you anglophiles and Bugs “da Barber of Seville” Bunny fans), and Córdoba.
Kilometers traveled between cities: 1,288. (800.3 miles. And really, I should have put a period to mark the thousands place, but then that would require an explanatory sentence lest you come away thinking we traveled only about a mile.) Over 900 of those klicks were on a bus.
Pictures taken: 3,143. On my biggest photo day (the 22nd) I took 349 pictures of the Cathedral of Seville and Plaza de España. I have a problem. I took 147 pictures of the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba on the 26th, and then when we returned on the 28th (because it’s that good), I took 101 more. You can see a small bit of those photos on my Flickr page. And that’s just me. Meghan has more than a few on her phone.
Steps taken: 419,020. Google tells me that’s about 130 miles. That works out to 14,965 steps or 4.6 miles per day. Our longest day was over 28,000 steps when we walked around the city wall of Ávila.
Churches visited: 11. The largest was the Cathedral of Seville, which is 23,500 square meters (or 5.8 acres for you farmers), making it the third largest church and largest cathedral in the world. I took a total of 1,120 pictures in/of those churches.
Number of UNESCO World Heritage sites visited: 6. Alhambra; Historic Centre of Cordoba; Old Town of Avila; Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct; Cathedral and Alcazar in Seville; and the Old City of Salamanca. Don’t worry, I have a few pictures.
Alcazars visited: 4. OK, fine, it was actually three. We were going to go to the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos on Feb. 28th, but it closed early for Andalucía Day, so we missed our chance.

It’s been fun, interesting, educational, and delicious. Here are a few highlights.

Madinat Al-Zahra
Madinat Al-Zahra (also Medina Azahara) was a short-lived de facto capital of al-Andalus built beginning in 936-940 by the first Umayyad Caliph of Córdoba. Founded outside of Córdoba as a symbol of power of the new caliph, it was sacked in 1010 in a civil war. After centuries of being stripped of building materials, the city exists today as ruins and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Crucifix and Mudejar Arches in the Villaviciosa Chapel
The Chapel of Our Lady of Villaviciosa in the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba

Altarpiece of the Main Altar
The Cathedral’s main altar is dominated by the 91 ft. (27.8 m) carved relief altarpiece. The altarpiece was designed by Pedro Dancart in 1482 and executed over 80 years with a number of artists in craftsmen carrying out the work until 1564. It contains 44 reliefs depicting over 200 figures in scenes from the Old and New Testaments.

Facade of the Palacio de Pedro I
The main entrance to the Palace of Pedro I on the patio of the Montería. Above the windows, below the mocárabe (ornamented vaulting) is a tile mural with Arabic text indicating the year of the palace’s completion. Bordering the mural is latin text in a Gothic style indicating who ordered the construction the palaces.

Mosaic in Casas de los Pajaros
The Roman ruins of Italica are just outside of Sevilla. Founded in 206 BC, Italica was the first Roman settlement in Southern Spain.

Altar in Chapel of Our Lady of Victory
Fernando Magellan and sailors prayed to this image of Our Lady of Victory before setting sail to circumnavigate the globe in 1519. The eighteen survivors of the journey returned here in 1522 to pray once again and give thanks.

Patio of the Lions (Patio de los Leones) in the Nasrid Palaces of the Alhambra
Built by Muhammad V in the late 14th century, the Patio of the Lions (Patio de los Leones) is at the center of the Palace of the Lions (Palacio de los Leones). Named after the fountain in the middle of the courtyard this made of 12 water-jet lions supporting a basin, the Patio of Lions is flanked on north by the Hall of the Two Sisters (Sala de Dos Hermanas), the Hall of the Kings (Sala de los Reyes) on the east, and the Hall of the Abencerrajes (Sala de Abencerrajes) on the south.

Meghan Finds the Trail
Walking around the Ávila City Walls. Built between the 11th and 14th centuries, the City Walls of Ávila are 1.6 mi. (2,516 m.) long and enclosure 0.12 sq. mi. (31 ha) of the Old Town of Ávila. The walls are, on average, 39.4 ft. (12 m.) high and 9.8 ft. (3 m.) thick. Nine gates allow access to the town.

The Original South Portal (Puerta del Mediodía) of San Martín de Tours in Salamanca
While the South Portal (Puerta del Mediodía) still communicates with the temple, an additional, Renaissance portal and atrium was built over it in the late 16th century. Materials provided by the parish suggest dismay of the “new” door calling it “the poorest and most ungainly door of all, with an archivolt of simple pointed jambs and two ugly statues on the jambs, of the Virgin and Saint Gabriel, imitating those that exist at the door of the Old Cathedral.”

13th Century Tomb in the South Transept of the Old Cathedral of Salamanca
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Iglesia de la Vera Cruz
Built in the 12th c. by what is believed to be the Orden del Santo Sepulcro (Order of the Holy Sepulchre), Iglesia de la Vera Cruz (the Church of the True Cross) once housed what is believed to be a relic of Lignum Crucis

The East Side Aqueduct of Segovia (Acueducto de Segovia)
Although a precise date of construction has yet to be determined, the aqueduct was likely built in the early 2nd century or late 1st century CE. Until the mid 19th century, it continued to bring water to Segovia from the Rio Frio, some 17 km (11 mi) from the city. It highest point is 29 m (94 ft) above the ground.

It's Cold 80 Meters Up in the Bell Tower of the Catedral of Segovia (Catedral de Segovia)
The temple’s construction was interrupted in 1614 when a fire destroyed the spire of the tower, reducing the towers height from 109 m to 88 m.

Cafe con Leche at Hola Cofee
In Madrid

Smoked Salmons
At Lamiak, Madrid

Boquerones and Calamaris
At Brillante in Madrid

The contrast between our Madrileño lifestyle of January and tourist-mode February has taught us that we need to spend more time doing nothing to give us time between cathedrals and art museums to contemplate what we’re getting out of all this and writing the occasional missive letting you know what we’ve been up to.

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