Oxleys' Adventures

Sevilla is the capital of Andalucia…it is a beautiful city with VERY narrow streets and -of course-more cathedrals and castles!!!

This cathedral is the oldest GOTHIC cathedral in the WORLD. We climbed 34 ramps/pathways to reach the top of the belfry and view the city from above.

Here are a few pics from this morning’s tour…starting with the most interesting…the remains of Christopher Columbus!!A video from the belfry…

A few views from the inside…

A quick look at the sights along the walk…

Today is Saturday and lots of weddings…tried to capture the Spanish wedding attire ….pretty glamorous… This is called the avenue of the ‘kiss’ because it is SO narrow legend has it that you can stand on one balcony and kiss the gal ‘across the avenue’ on the other balcony❤️!!

Sevilla is a city which really appears to truly have a lot of ‘soul’ …people appear to flock here to celebrate events!! We ran into many groups of young women coming in for those destiny bridal shower getaways🤗🎉🤗!! The city is alive with celebrations!!

A most fascinating city!!

Off to Malaga tomorrow…and we are VERY excited to see the Rock of Gibraltar, again. We passed it on our freighter trip, as we entered from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean….never thinking we would ever see it again….tomorrow may be the day-:)!!!

We visited one of Europe’s most frequented spots …La Alhambra of Granada, Spain. It attracts nearly 8,000 visitors a day and is the last and greatest of the Moorish Palace’s. In the famous year of our 1492…a lot more was also going on in Spain over and above our Christopher Columbus thinking he had discovered India rather than our beloved USA. The Christian Reconquista took over this Moorish Palace and many other parts of Spain, also, in 1492. A lot was happening historically here.

The result is quite a mixture of architecture and beautiful remains. La Alhambra is equivalent in size to 20 professional soccer fields. You walk through a maze of gardens, summer residences, former palaces, vegetable gardens etc. It is absolutely an amazing experience!!

Washington Irving even lived at Alhambra and in 1829 wrote Tales of Alhambra. There is a room of the palace dedicated to him.

This day was cold, blustery and rainy-:)!! Our first challenging weather day since we arrived. Hopefully, the pictures will still allow you to see the beauty of this famous spot. It is the second tourist attraction of Spain -right after Sagrada Família in Barcelona…which I shared pictures of earlier.

We took a 40 minute fast train and then a driver picked us up at the rail station. We then drove for one and half more hours to reach Granada. All worth the effort to see this spot…monsoon rains and all😳!!

It was interesting to note that this part of Spain also has earthquake tremors frequently. In the month of September they had at least 20-:)!! None registered over 3.5….thank goodness!!

Here take a look….and know that these gardens were originally planted 600 years ago…

I wish I could adequately depict the intrinsic patterns of the ceilings….you just stabs there looking up amazed at the craftsmanship…

Here is the plaque to our Washington Irving…they attribute the rekindling of interest in La Alhambra to the publication of his novel.

Here are some views from Alhambra looking down on the town of Granada…

Some more pics to complete our tour ….Off to Seville tomorrow!!

Ohhh…here is an interesting piece of architecture…

Bud has NOT REALLY been sent to the corner…however by whispering into that corner…I could hear his message way on the other side of this Courtyard…😳!!

All because of the architecture of this particular space…

Thank YOU for following along on our adventure!!! We love to share our journey as we fully realize how VERY blessed we are to have our health to be able to even take on this kind of a journey…

We are probably walking close to 7-8 miles a day over cobblestones, steps etc. as many of these sights are only accessible on foot.

The Mezquita of Córdoba is a preserved mosque, second only to Granada’s Alhambra. Today it is a Catholic Cathedral. It was over 162, 000 square feet and has remaining g over 800 columns.

Join us and take a look:

The walk through the streets of Córdoba are truly worth a look…it is a beautiful city with white washed walls and flower pots hanging to decorate your path.

Then we visited the Royal Palace of Córdoba. The gardens were exceptionally beautiful. Our guide spoke wonderful English and had lived in New Orleans for almost a year. He had served in the Spanish navy for 20 years as an air traffic controller aboard Spanish Naval Carriers. He was an historian and an archeologist and now giving tours. All of our guides have been excewith such a deep knowledge and understanding of their rich Spanish history.

Toured Spain’s #1 Art Museum today, Museo del Prado. It contains the best single collection of Spanish art in the world. Goya, El Greco, Diego Velazquez were among our favorites and phenomenally interesting for a non-art Major-:)!!

I know you are asking and what about Picasso. Picasso is actually considered Contemporary and was not on display in the particular section of the Prado.

We were intrigued by the artists suddenly appearing as self portraits in their works. We saw a fabulous El Greco in Toledo yesterday. Today’s highlight was Velazquez’s ….Las Meninas. For the people of Spain this is like seeing Mona Lisa at the Louvre. By the way…they even have their own ‘Mona Lisa’ here done by one of Leonardo de Vinci’s students-:)!!!

Unfortunately, again…NO pictures but here are a couple of the outside.

The Prado museum is celebrating its 200th year anniversary.

A few more pics of our final morning walk of Madrid…the Crystal Palace in their largest public city park and their city hall. Plus, the bonus of a beautiful black swan along the walk-:)!!!

Today we toured Toledo, Spain!! We took a train from Madrid. It is only about 40 minutes south by fast train.

What a great joy to finally see a city where one of your children ( our ‘Carebear’) studied.

It is a beautiful city full of history and was once the Capital City of Spain until it was moved to Madrid. The entire city is a national monument. It sits on top of a rocky perch and is protected on three sides by the Tajo River.

There is a rich mix of Jewish, Moorish and Christian heritages. El Greco called it home and his works are true landmarks of the city.

Here are some pics of the day…

We then saw some amazing symbols in their Cathedral. One being this monstrance which is the largest in the world. On the feast of Corpus Christi they actually carry this in a huge parade through the streets of Toledo. The pictures do not do it justice but is beautiful beyond words and hard to imagine it being moved through the streets of this hilly city…

Here are some more pictures of the Cathedral…

Then we walked the beautiful hilly streets of this gem of a city…Plus…a street dedicated to Toledo, Ohio…

We then returned to Madrid by train and took in a Spanish Flamingo Show in Madrid.

Here are some night pics of the city…with some Flamingo dancing!!

This morning we did a walking tour of Spain’s Capital City of Madrid. We toured its beautiful Royal Palace. Unfortunately, we could not take any pictures after a certain area of the interior. There are over 2,800 rooms-if you can even begin to imagine that amount. We visited 20 of them and they were spectacular. The display of chandeliers took your breath away. The King no long lives here but the Royal Palace is used for entertaining etc.

Here are some pics…but FIRST…it was our granddaughter Clare’s First Communion and her older sister, Grace, was a server….have to sneak this in for anyone who is truly following this blog-:)!!They live in Omaha, Nebraska.

This is our son Eric with Emily, Henry, Clare, John and Grace!!! Now on to the Royal Palace of Madrid…-:)!!!The Royal Gardens…The Royal Coat of Arms…The chandeliers …hundreds of them….wish they would have allowed pictures….

An example of the beautiful ceiling paintings….Here Spain’s new King is pictured on the right in the picture below.

Then we continued our walking tour of the City…with a quick stop for their famous hot chocolate-:)!! As you can see..a bit brisk..Bud’s favorite local lunch spot where you can get the best calamari in the city….

A few closing pics for the day…and a video of one of Madrid’s city gathering places…Here is the symbol of Madrid…The ‘Bear and the Tree’…If you want to ring in the New Year in Madrid…their ‘Times Square’ is a clock in the main gathering plaza of the city. They limit admission to this area on New Year’s Eve to 20,000.

We have watched it many times from the USA as coverage begins ‘panning’ New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world around 6:00 pm our time…Not quite as dramatic as dropping the ball in Times Square or the Walleye Drop in Port Clinton-:)!!

One more glimpse…

Starting soon during Holy Week…the people of Spain have amazing ‘parades’ and they will carry the Blessed Virgin on this HUGE chariot style platform that will be elevated over their heads.They say it is one celebration after another…the entire town comes out!! Hope to see a few as we travel on….

Tomorrow off on a day trip to Toledo, Spain, by fast train. We are very excited to see this city as our daughter, Keri, lived there with a family for a semester to learn the language and study🤗!!

We spent the morning touring Sagrada Familia-Gaudi’s amazing church in Barcelona. We also toured his gardens called-Park Guell. The work on the Basilica began 131 years ago and they plan to have it completed in 2026. This would be 100 years after Gaudi’s death. Gaudi was a deeply spiritual man and his story and architecture is compelling.

Here take a look….

Now let’s take a look inside…it is totally unique and my son-in-law, Dave’s favorite church in the world-:)!!

The stained glass windows are actually mosaics and represents famous religious sights around the world. Just imagine they have been working on it for over 300 years…We then went to Gaudi’s Park….pretty amazing the carved pathways of beauty that he created…Now we are off on the high speed train which takes us from Barcelona to Madrid, where we will spend four days touring the area.

We ended up being served just as if we were seated on an airplane:A few more favorite pics to end our day…ohhhh and this carved number chart….each column adds up to the number of years Christ lived-33-:)!! These are the shadows of colors cast on the Church as they come through the mosaic stained glass windows.

We started down the beautiful streets of Old Town, Barcelona…We quite quickly passed gorgeous models being photographed on our hotel avenue…See that ‘hole’ ….that is where they supposedly “fed” their dead who had been cremated and buried in these graves below the city of Barcelona.These are the Barcelona style of chocolate covered strawberries!! Ham is very important to the cuisine of Spain. They come in all kinds of cuts and price ranges. You can purchase ‘cups of ham’ to eat as if you were eating an ice cream cone!!

This picture below is a market stand of unbelievable amounts of different types of EGGS….Each market display focused on one style of produce.Octopus, anyone??

Their Barcelona Open Market in years past has been rated #1 in the world. It was SPECTACULAR!!! Hoping the pictures did the experience justice…

These are pictures from the Cathedral of Barcelona. What an amazing place of worship and this is not even their gemstone…that one comes tomorrow!!!

Then we headed down the Rambla on to El Born and off to the harbor of Barcelona!!

We spent the day with our dear friends Gillian and Alan. Their home on Mallorca is BEAUTIFUL!! Much time is spent on their English gardens that surround their Mallorca home.

I was so taken aback with all the loving care that goes into the gardens that I failed to adequately capture it by camera.

We asked if we could ‘walk their day’ with them to see what their life is like-:)!!

We walked almost two hours to experience their vistas of the world.

Here is what we experienced:Thank you for an AMAZING day…now we will be able to picture exactly where you and your dear Mum/’Granny’ walked …..through to her 93rd Birthday❤️!!

We are now flying over to Barcelona from Mallorca. This 45 minute jaunt will take us to our next destination-:)!!

See you on the mainland…

I just have to get Bud to move from his favorite spot….😳

What a wonderful day with Michael our guide who gave us a phenomenal tour of the island of Mallorca. The only thing missing was being able to personally wish our beautiful daughter-in-law -Emily-a Happy 40th BD!! Of course, “What’s App” took care of that need and allowed us to visit with her via social media-:)!!!

Some of the highlights of our island tour included Valldemossa, Deià and Port de Sóller.

We then met our two dear friends from England who have a home here on the island…Gillian and Alan. They made a VERY special effort to fly here so we could spend time together. We met them a year ago aboard our trip to the French Marquesas Islands on the Aranui V.

Here are some pics from our tour today…

Some of the interesting doors in the village of Valldemossa..We loved how they hang the flower pots by each of their doors. So warm and welcoming …Our favorite gluttonous treat of the day…their orange ice cream specialty made from oranges grown only in Mallorca and sprinkled with fresh chocolate and their homemade whip cream-:)!!

Thus ends our mission of “no weight gain” this trip…-:)!!!