On Monday, February 21, 2011, I got up at 7:00 am, showered, changed, and headed out the door at 7:45 am.  (7:45 am is just about perfect, as it's almost light outside, but there are tons of people around, as everyone's on the way to work.)  It takes 25 minutes to walk from Plaza Nueva to Sevilla-Santa Justa train station (if you don't get lost)!  The Sevilla TI's free map is very good :)  It was brisk but pleasant in just a T-shirt.

I got to the Sevilla train station at around 8:15 am and bought my ticket.  The station is clean with plenty of seating.  It also has free bathrooms!		I took the 9:00 am slow train from Sevilla to Cordoba.  Even the slow train went 159 km/h (95 mph)!  Price was 11.10 euros ($15.30) each way for the 80-minute trip.
		Here I am in front of Cordoba's train station.  After sitting on the heated train for over an hour, I had to put my fleece on in Cordoba!
It was a pleasant 30-minute walk from the train station to the Mezquita.  The first part of the walk is along a wide boulevard (Avenida de la Libertad).  Where I cut right to turn into town, there were these nifty waterfall/fountains.  So cool!
The beginning of the walk to the Mezquita is through a downtown, urban scene, then it changes to small town, backstreets.  Occasionally, there were these nifty tiled tourists signs.  (There weren't enough signs, though; I had to rely on my maps.)
I made it!  Here is the main entrance to the Mezquita, a beautiful Moorish keyhole gate called the Perdon (Pardon) gate.		The first things in the Mezquita are the courtyard and the bell tower. Entrance price was 8 euros ($11).
I didn't expect to see Roman mosaics!  They are on the level "below" the Mezquita and were discovered during excavations.  Wow!
The most impressive sight in Cordoba's Mezquita was the mihrab, the prayer nook.  It is so beautifully decorated! (Reminded me of St. Mark's in Venice.)
Two views of the decorated ceiling above the mihrab.  I can't believe this beauty has lasted all this time, nearly a thousand years.
There were many fancy arches in the Mezquita.		Many stonemason marks are still visible!
The Mezquita is know for its red-and-white brick arches.  There are so many!
		One last photo of the impressive arches.
After visiting the Mezquita, I walked on the pedestrian bridge over the Guadalquivir River.
		I walked back from the river to the train station along a different route, stopping here, at the pleasant Plaza de las Tendillas (very French!) and El Corte Ingles. I enjoyed my 3.5 hours in Cordoba!
I'm often asked what I eat when I'm travelling.  On this day, I had a Fanta Zero orange (yum) and two glazed donuts (alsoo good). Price was 1.59 euros ($2.20).  I ate on the 80-minute train ride back to Sevilla.  I was back to Sevilla by 3:30 pm.
		There was a remnant of a Roman aqueduct along my walk from the Sevilla train station back to the old center.
My next stop was the Sevilla Cathedral and a climb up the Giralda Tower.  There it is in the distance!
I usually don't take pictures in churches, but I took a few in the Sevilla Cathedral.  Entrance fee was 8 euros ($11) and included the Giralda Tower climb. I can see why this is the largest church in the world.  It's huge!
OK, so it's more impressive on TV, but it was neat to see Columbus's tomb.
		After a few minutes of walking around and seeing Columbus's tomb, I headed to climb the Giralda tower (since it closed before the church did). This was the very unadorned ramp.  It was 33 "flights" of ramps up! Neat to imagine it was designed in Moorish times to accomodate a horse and rider.
Here are two of the beautiful views I had from the Giralda tower.  The one on the left is of the area around the Cathedral. The one on the right is toward the river and shows two of the nifty 1992 World's Fair-era bridges.
A view from the Giralda tower looking down at the Plaza del Triunfo, where I sat my first night in Sevilla.		One last gratuitous shot from the Giralda :) You can see Sevilla's bull ring in the distance. The bars reminded me of the Empire State Building!
After the Cathedral and tower, I hit the ATM, went to the RENFE office near my hotel to buy the next day's train ticket (so convenient!), stopped by El Corte Ingles for breakfast and train food the next day (4.75 euros [$6.55]), and walked as far as I could to get to the unusual bridges (seen in the picture on the right).  Seville's riverside path is very nice!  I wish I'd had a bike.  Instead, I walked back along the river all the way to the Plaza de Espana.  Along the way, I got 2 cheeseburgers and a patatas deluxe from McDonald's (4.10 euros, $5.65) and drank a Fanta Zero lemon.
I got to attend the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, so it was fun to see the remnants of former World's Fair sites in Seville.  On the left are buildings from the 1992 World's Fair.  More impressive is the Plaza de Espana, the Spanish Pavillion from the 1929 World's Fair.  It's all done in beautiful, fancy tilework (and beautifuul restored).  I was there after dark, so it was a little creepy, but I'm glad I went.

Seville photos

Granada photos

Alhambra photos

Madrid photos