Leaving Sevilla

 We have been riding trains (7) which run at or close to full capacity.  Crowds of passengers on the loading platforms, people on the train with hacking coughing, if we haven’t been exposed to Covid, or worse, I will be surprised.  Also, dense crowds milling in the narrow alleys, “calle” of the old city neighborhoods we have visited.  Here in Sevilla, temperatures have reached the mid-90s the past few days. Amazing to consider how many man-years these historic structures required for construction with the crude equipment they had.  But slave labor is cheap.

Roman aquaduct at Segovia.  No mortar was used between the blocks of stone, but they were carefully shaped; how did they do it!

On our way to Tarifa, we stopped at Jerez de la Frontera.  The city looked rather drab at first look, but then we found the central old town area. Of course, there was a celebration going on.  We love those pedestrian-only streets.  It was a nice lunch stop.

A rental car “coche de aquiler” was used for the next leg of our trip with our immediate destination being Tarifa on the south coast.  Tarifa, located adjacent to the strait of Gibraltar, has an ancient history itself.  The narrow, crooked lanes of the fortress interior are now shops and restaurants for the tourists here.  Very enjoyable that the crowds of larger cities are not present here. Also, there is a wide sand beach which stretches for miles; I counted almost fifty kite surfers on their hydrofoil boards playing in the ocean off that beach.

Tarifa has a beach that is miles long, what you see is only a moderate section.

Today we go to Tangier, Morocco, for a day tour, taking the ferry between the two continents, Europe and Africa. We have a guide and a van for a tour of the finer points of Tangier and a village to the west.  He loves his country, apparently ruled by a king who is making improvements for the people.  But still, women are far from being equal in this world and the economic disparity between the favored and the poor is tremendous.  In rural areas, formal education ends at primary school, age 13. For the favored, university is free.  We saw the huge estates of the wealthy; hiring servants here is very economical.  We visited a souk where we were encouraged to buy any of a world of items, but none would fit in our luggage.  We had a traditional Moroccan meal; not very memorable, hacking bits of lamb off a large bone.

Morocco as seen from Tarifa, Spain.  You can see a ship traversing the strait.  Further to the right of this photo, the buildings of coastal towns were also visible.

Coastal resort in Morocco.  Magnificent estates for the rich, not so much for everyone else.

Driving onward, we stopped for lunch in Rhonda, a town in the mountains built on the edge of a cliff.  That cliff has been a godsend for their tourism; otherwise, the town is fairly typical. 

Ronda showing its cliff-edge location.  A tourist magnet in a remote mountain location. 

Turning in our rental car at Granada, we were ready for our reservation to visit the palace at the Alhambra.  At 1pm, we were part of a large crowd herded through the many rooms.  The details are amazing in their complexity, but the crowds are distracting. I took only a limited number of photos because many scenes were dominated by the crowds of people. The surrounding gardens were somewhat better.

The main Alhambra complex from a distance.  They say the Moorish style was to have simple exterior lines and ornate interior features.

Looking south to the Sierra Nevada mountains south of Granada.  They have ski resorts there. 

The following day was free, no pre-planned activities. We took a taxi to the high point in the city with great views, then we walked the narrow back streets downhill on our way back to our hotel. At an Arabic “souk” of closely spaced small shops, Dawn bought a skirt. Later that day, we headed out in a new direction until all our surroundings were unfamiliar to us; then we consulted GPS and plotted a route back to the hotel, stopping for ice cream along the way.  The neighborhoods are attractive with their park-like plazas, many small specialty stores, and restaurants/ tapa bars.

Now we are in Bordeaux, France.