On our tenth day, we left Arcos, and drove towards Granada. As we left the city we saw one of the infamous (to us, anyway) “No more Arcos” signs. On the way to Granada we were going to stop at Ronda, the place where Hemingway used to live and which inspired him to write about bullfighting.

The road to Ronda was very narrow and windy, and Theresa was too scared to leave the car sometimes. There were great views of mountains and the reservoir from the road, and on the way we stopped at a town called Zahara which had an old church and castle.

In Ronda, bullfighting is big. When we got there we went to the bullfighting ring. Outside was a statue of a bullfighter. Inside, it was pretty cool.

Ronda is split by a new bridge (200 years old), aptly named Puenta Nueva which splits the old city (”La Ciudad”) from the new. We took a walk around, and saw some interesting trees on the sidewalks. We walked to an old Prince’s mansion, Palacio de Mondragón. It was a beautiful house; some parts had water flowing through it. When we were there, they were exhibiting some art, including the interesting hippo sculpture below.

SHUPER HAPPY!!!

Arcos De La Frontera is a little town on the top of a mountain. There are sheer cliffs on both sides and Arcos resides on a strip of land in the middle. It was one of the prettiest places in Espana! The views from the top were amazing, and the streets and buildings were very romantic. Arcos is one of the “white villages” because of its whitewashed walls. Before we left, we saw Arcos in the New York Times travel section, where they mentioned a famous alley where we took a picture. There was only one major road in Arcos, and it was very windy and very very narrow.

When we arrived, we missed our exit on the top and had to go all the way back down and up again. But the views from the road were awesome. There were also great panoramic views from the city plaza and the hotel we stayed at, the El Convento. Below are some pictures from the inside of the room. (can you tell we liked it?) Our hotel was mentioned in our travel book and the author, Rick Steves, even got a suite named after him.

The first night, we went to a tapas bar in what was formerly an old castle’s dungeon. The food and wine there were terrific, and when it came time for desert, the owner brought us over to the ice cream stand. They had the usual blue sign with all the Camy ice creams on it. I saw one called Marty which looked like some kind of an alien. When I asked for that, the waiter laughed at me and called me a stupid american. Well, maybe he didn’t call me that to my face but he must have been thinking that. That night we decided not to go to Morocco the next day and stay in Arcos another day. We would have had to leave extremely early in the morning and we weren’t even sure that going to Algiers would be a true taste of Morocco (other than hustlers trying to take our money). Plus, Arcos was such a cool place, that it made our choice easy. The only problem, as we later discovered, was that the next day was a Sunday and everything was d-e-a-d.

On Sunday, we started out with breakfast on the patio of the hotel, which had an awesome view from the edge of the cliff. Then we went shopping in the “new town” part of Arcos, which was lower down than the upper part where the church was. We made sure to make a reservation for the Alhombra in Granada, which is one of the most popular tourist attractions in all of Europe. The best gazpacho I had on the trip so far was here in a restaurant in a small plaza (Plaza de Cecila). On the walk up the narrow street we took some pictures of the landscape This day was probably one of the more relaxing ones of the vacation.

Jerez de la Frontera is the birthplace of sherry. According to legend, the name sherry comes from the British pronunciation of Jerez’s Arabic name. The white soil there is the secret to the flavor of sherry.

In town there are stacked barrels showing where the vineyards are. We stayed in Jerez only long enough to check out the Gonzalez Byass headquarters. Tio Pepe, made by Gonzalez Byass, is one of the oldest and best known sherries. The tour consisted of driving around the lot in a cheesy little train. After the train ride, we were shown the cellar where the sherry was aged in oak barrels. The tour was cool but when I had some Tio Pepe, it was horrible.

On the way to the next town, Arcos, we saw a field of sunflowers. We stopped to take pictures of ourselves and the car, including one where you can see the damage done in Toledo.

Sevilla was probably my favorite city in Spain. It was small, but full of culture. The only gripe I had was that it was a bit touristy, but other than that I would even see myself living there. We had a great time just walking around the old parts as well as the new.

When we arrived in Sevilla, one thing I noticed was the streets were super narrow again. Finding the hotel took a while too and the guy there had to park our car because the garage entrance had barely enough room for our car to pass (we had to fold the mirror in order to get through). The hotel, Hostal Sierpes, was really nice in the lobby and hallways, but our room was horrible. The worst part about it was the bathroom. There was barely enough light to see yourself in the shower, and it was dirty. The lobby here, and in all other hotels/hostals that I noticed, were very nicely decorated with walls of Islamic-style tiles. Very cool.

Here, as in other parts of Spain, we were warned about thieves. We were paranoid about never leaving things in the car, and we always carried our money belts. Nothing ever happened, though, and I’m not sure if it was because we were careful or we just had decent luck.

Our first day in Sevilla started out rainy, but then got nice and sunny. We had our laundry done with a drop-off service. That was cool because we didn’t have to waste time doing it ourselves.

Our first stop was the cathedral, with it’s huge bell tower. Outside was a little courtyard where I got pooped on by pigeons. Yuck! The ramp leading up to the bell tower was very wide because it was built for horses to go up. From the top of the tower, amongst the bells, we could see all of Sevilla.

The next stop was the Alcazar Real. The Christian monarchs Alfonso X and Pedro I employed Moorish craftsmen to build it in the 14th century. It was very cool, with a big elaborate garden in the back.

At night, we hung out by the waterfront which was very romantic. It was surprisingly dead at only 2 in the morning.

The next day, we went to the Plaza de España, which was modern addition to Sevilla. It’s a large open space with a water fountain in the middle surrounded on 3 sides by a huge government building. Inside, we went to the Museo Militaire where they had some old missiles and guns.. it was interesting (but Theresa got bored quick). When we were there, tour buses kept coming by with all the tourists getting out and taking pictures, buying souvenirs, then leaving. I swore I would never do that. What’s the point, really? You can’t get a taste of the local culture by doing that.

After visiting the Plaza, we went to the waterfront one last time before heading off to Jerez..

On our way to Sevilla from Toledo, we stopped by at Córdoba, which I think was officially the hottest place on earth that day. I swear my feet were burning just walking around. On the way, we saw a Mora sign. That was about the only cool thing on the way, which was mostly boring highways. Oh, and a rock hit our windshield and cracked it a bit. The car was taking a beating!

The only thing we did in Córdoba was go to the Mezquita, which is an old mosque-turned-church type deal. Theresa says she read about the Mezquita’s arches in her art history class. Before we went in, we hung out in the Orange Grove courtyard inside the walls of the Mezquita, which the Fodor’s book said was a good place to “rest and reflect.” That was funny as hell because it was basically a dump with some orange trees.

One of the most interesting things about the Mezquita was the blend of Arabic and Christian architecture. For example, there was a cross hanging right below an arabic arch. The main feature of the Mezquita were the red and white striped arches. There were a bunch of enclaves with old, fading (and some restored) colored arches, and a cool stained glass window. The ceilings were also very elaborate.