Our Last Day in Spain

It was so hard to decide what to do with our last day, there was SO much we still wanted to see and we knew there was no way we could even begin to do that. We woke up to rain, but couldn't really complain because the forecast for our entire trip called for thunderstorms and we only got the one day of drizzle. We started out in El Puerto de Santa Maria and visited the city church briefly. There was a service of some kind going on so we didn't want to disturb things. It is a beautiful church inside and out.



Our next stop was a really cool Moorish Castle where Christopher Columbus is said to have stayed while getting ready for his trip to America. The guide said the next english speaking tour wasn't until 1:30PM and we just couldn't wait around for that so had to satisfy ourselves with walking around the outside of the walls and peering through the open front door.


We spent the next big part of our day walking around the white village of Arcos de la Frontera. It is a very dramatic village perched on the top of a limestone ridge. There are many tiny lanes of whitewashed houses and several stone churches and a castle poking up through the houses. We remembered driving through the buttresses of the church on one of the incredibly narrow roads the last time we were there, but now the traffic rules have that part of the village closed to outside traffic. Probably not a bad idea because we had to step up into doorways several times to avoid cars and even a bus so it is scary to imagine tourists driving there too!



We stopped at a grocery store for some sandwich fixings and headed down the road to Seville again. One of our guide books had some pictures of the inside of the Royal Palace called the Real Alcazar and we knew we had to try to see it. We REALLY wanted to get to Granada to see the Alhambra but there was just no way, so this would be our moorish architecture stop instead. We were NOT disappointed at all. What an incredible building. The rooms just seemed to go on and on and were full of amazing ornamentation and tilework. If they hadn't closed and shooed us out the exit doors I don't think we would have had enough of it.