Seville

Now that we had Blanca, we wanted to test her wheels! So, Johann called me from work on Friday morning (after Easter week) asking me to pack up - that he'd booked a hotel room in Seville (sounds like Seh-vee-yah in Spanish) for the weekend!

We left around 4pm on Friday evening and our GPS had us in downtown Seville in 65 minutes exactly!

After we checked into the hotel, we took a taxi into the city center for dinner and an evening stroll. Around the corner from the restaurant was the incredible Cathedral of Seville - the world's largest Gothic structure - and arguably one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Europe. It's ridiculously huge and was breathtaking, all lit up against the night sky.

There were musicians playing on the street and the girls were having a ball.






The next morning, after eating some paella for lunch,












we went back to tour the church (which houses Christopher Columbus' tomb and an interesting replica of the head of John the Baptist :-) ), went outside into the Orange groves and then climbed the 37 floors to the top of the Giraldi Tower.

The views from the top were stunning.













There was much to see, but we decided we'd make a return trip to check out the Alcazar palace and some of the other sights and drove over to the Feria grounds to play! But, not before picking up some Sevilliana dresses for Reese and Rayna! My girls LOVE to dress up, so they were in 7th heaven!

Feria in Spain is an annual festival that takes place in various towns typically in the weeks following Easter. Seville's Feria we learned, is always the week after Easter and Rota's Feria (the town where the base is) is the following week...followed by El Puerto de Santa Maria (where we live)'s Feria...so basically, a month long celebration every weekend!

The Feria's take place on these huge fair grounds and carnival rides are brought in, huge tents are erected with restaurants built inside, hundreds of horse drawn carriages line the streets - filled with ladies dressed in beautiful Sevilliana dresses (named for the town of Seville), people singing and dancing, and children having the time of their lives.

(And apparently fireworks on the closing night - or MORNING - as we learned a few weeks later when Feria was in Puerto and we woke up to the sound of explosions - and looked out our window to see a fireworks show to rival Disneyland on the 4th of July but at 1:30am (YES, 1:30AM)...

I digress...













It was a short but memorable trip and we are excited to go back soon.