Seville (Cadiz), Spain

We docked in Cadiz this morning and were greeted by the view of a church instead of a mosque. It’s been a long time for us since that happened!

We headed out of Cadiz and drove for an hour an a half through the Andalusian countryside toward Seville. We were amazed at the variety of crops that we saw but surprised that the fields were so small; no big agribusiness here it seemed.

But we weren’t able to get the details because our “guide” didn’t say a word on the whole trip! Finally someone asked him why not and he said he wasn’t a guide. It was very strange and we felt robbed of the opportunity to learn much about Spain in general. Actually the whole day went that way because the guide who took us to three stops in Seville gave us only very specific information on those sites and nothing on Spain overall. So we all rated this day as not so good and to top it off Dale was having a worse than normal day of “rocking” so we had to watch every step on the cobblestone streets as we walked a couple of miles through the old city. So, for what it’s worth, today you get only a few pictures of the Plaza Espana, built for the Ibero-American exposition of 1929,

the Bario de Santa Cruz, where we visited a mansion that once was a private residence

and the Seville Cathedral and its environs. The church, the third largest Gothic cathedral in Europe, was originally a mosque and the former minaret is now the church’s bell tower.

We had lunch in a quaint little restaurant where we and the waiter struggled to understand each other and we ended up with other than we expected and then spent some time in the plaza with the hundreds of other people enjoying the beautiful afternoon.

This evening the ladies Bible study group had dinner in the private dining room of the Chef’s Table and the men’s group ate together in the Restaurant. Not everyone was able to come because there is still so much illness going around, but those who did, in both groups, had a great time of fellowship. Would you believe the men didn’t break up until way after the ladies did!!

As the women said last night it will be hard to leave these new friends when we go home. We have become close as we have shared adventures, disappointments, medical emergencies, and the pain of problems back home. We have so many shared memories of what we have learned by going around the world and seeing the many cultures, meeting the significant people and becoming more aware of the needs of so many. It has changed many of us in very practical ways. And we are thankful for that.