Road Trip

We just got back from Southern Spain. I think this is my favorite part of Spain. I love the Arab influences in the architecture. We visited Cordoba, Sevilla, The pueblos blanco, Ronda, and Gibraltar. In Cordoba we visited the cathedral and the alcazar with it's beautiful moorish gardens. The cathedral here once was a mosque when the moors ruled Spain. At the time of the conquest it was converted to a cathedral. It is gorgeous inside. The carvings and arches make it so much prettier than your usual cathedral. At the gardens we found a statue of Columbus being received by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. This is supposed to be where Columbus asked them to fund his exbitition. This is also one of the bases of the inquisition.
Sevilla is famous for it's bullfights, flamenco, and gypsies. We did see a few gypsies and street guitarist but didn't see a bullfight because we've been there done that and we didn't see flamenco because they are late at night and we stayed 15 minutes out of the city. The highlight here was the Alcazar. This is a Moorish palace that has been expanded through the years and still is used today as a royal palace. Sevilla is a beautiful city and you may or may not recognize one of it's famous buildings from Star Wars 2.
The pueblo blancos are white villages littered throughout the south. They are in a very mountainous region and are quite dramatic.
My favorite of these is Ronda. It is situated on both sides of a deep ravine. We didn't get to spend too much time here because we visited a cave and took the kids to a public swimming pool we found in some small town. We wished we had spent a little more time here.
Our final day we went to Gibraltar to see this famous rock. We took a tour up to the top and the highlight for all was seeing the monkeys that were brought here from Morrocco hundreds of years ago. After having lunch we drove home took a wrong turn and drove an extra hour out of the way.