On to Sevilla

I bet you figured from the "final day" title of my previous post I meant I wouldn't torture with more blogs.  Wrong!

Three days after returning from the Sahara, we left for Spain, driving to Tangier where we spent the night.  The next morning we boarded the ferry to Tarifa, credited with;the origin of the word tariff, since it was the first port to charge ships to dock.

Ancient fort wall in Tarifa

The ferry takes approximately half an hour to cross from one continent to the other.  It was misty that morning, but here's a short video spanning the Straits of Gibraltar. 

A side note.  Counting starting in the US, I've visited three continents this trip.

Sevilla is an amazing city.  You can walk everywhere.  The streets are quaint and very narrow, many barely wide enough for one car.

Yes, cars do drive down this street!

There are uncounted small plazas, always with one or more outdoor cafes.

I tried to take pictures of them, but frequently failed since there are so many.  Here's another one.

And lots of churches.

The pink church

The Cathedral of Sevilla

The Cathedral has a long history.  Probably it was the site originally of a Roman temple.  Then a mosque. The architect who designed the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakech designed the mosque in Sevilla.  

A bell tower was added to the minaret when the cathedral was built

He also designed the uncompleted mosque near the mausoleum of King Hassan II. Much of the mosque was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755.

The Hassan Tower still remains

And let's not forget flamenco.  We didn't go every night, not that we couldn't, but walking all day, we didn't always have energy left to go out at 9:00.  

At least Grammy didn't ;-)