Last stop in Andalucia...Seville

Well, these are the last pictures from the first field trip, which was too long ago to even be posting now. But, you all know why I am so backlogged. So without any further rambling here is the last of the pictures. Enjoy!!! Oh, and one last thing, there aren't very many pictures of this city becuase for one of the days I had food poisining and taking pictures was the last of my concerns.

The Schindler Building along the waterfront. Kinda ugly in my opinion. Question to ponder...why do you have to go to pretty much the top of the building to get into it???

Hallway in the Real Alcazar. This palace was originally a fortress which was later expanded for King Pedro of Castile. Moorish workers were used for the construction and thus explains the reason for the Islamic architecture.

One of the many great halls that are located within the complex.

One of the many intricate, moorish, domes.

Only one of the various mosaic tile patterns that cover the walls of the complex. As stated in earlier blogs, mosaic tile works is a very distinct characteristic of Islamic architecture.

A threshold from a great hall to one of the multiple garden, courtyard areas outside. This is another characteristic of Islamic architectue; an obvious threshold area that acts as a metaphorical cleansing as one passes from one type of area to another. This is extremely visible in mosques.

One of the many courtyards in the Alcazar

The same courtyard, just trying to show the entire composition of it.

One of the walls in the Alcazar that is extensively decorated with mosaics.

A close up of that same wall to show how detailed Islamic mosaics truly are.

Another wall with mosaic tile patterns.

In the gardens of the Alcazar. As you can see these gardens are full of life, wildlife that is.

The animals are not afraid to come right up to your feet...(It also may be becuase we were feeding them, apparently ducks like cheetos)

The peacocks that run around the gardens. These are truly stupid animals. The way we were able to get them to come out from hiding was to take a handful of pebbles, throw them up into the air, and then when the peacocks heard them hit the ground, they came a runnin' for all the "food". They even went as far as trying to eat them before they realized that the rocks were not food.

Another shot of a peacock

Seville Cathedral. This is the largest church in the world for the amount of square feet of land it owns/ occupies with its cathedral and garden spaces.

The tomb of Christopher Columbus, or so they say that this is where he rests.

One of the extremely ornate altars located within.

Cool picture of us (from left to right: myself, Irene, Lauren, Doster, and Bnay)

One of the many large stained glass windows that line the perimeter of the church.

Looking at the city of Seville from the belltower.

A close up shot of a rooftop within the city. As you can see, since there is no room for a pool in a backyard, they are all located on rooftops. There were a bunch of rooftops with pools like this one.

The rooftop of the Seville Cathedral. This picture was taken as we decended from the belltower.

Another view of the church. Same corner as above but just different context included.

Looking at the cathedral from the garden space.

The Gardens of the Alhambra

Here is the rest of the pictures from the Alhambra. They are the gardens located throughout the entire complex.

The next few pictures are of a designed swail that takes the water from this fountain located in a wall to a giant pond at the bottom. You will see how it all connects.

This is a view of a small pond that flows from the fountain. I literally turned around a took a picture and this is the view you would see.

If you were to look through the opening in the shrub as seen above, looking down the stairwell/ water path.

Looking back up to the starting position of the fountain on the wall. Hopefully you can see the connection from the first picture to the rest of them.

The terminating point of that designed swail, a giant reflecting pool with a building at the opposite end.

An overview of the building shown above, with all the gardens that surround it.

An overview of the gardens. The building to the right is more of the Alhambra complex that is located on the opposite side of the mountain that we were on.

Yet another setion of the garden complex. Cool fountains

All of the buildings that you can see are part of the Alhambra complex. Its truly massive.

If you were to take the picture above anf look to the left, you will see how the complex continues even further.

Looking left even further from the above picture, you can see, again, even more of the Alhambra. (yeah, the complex is so big you can't fit it into one picture, or even two for that part. Also, im pretty sure this third picture dosen't even tell the story of the entire complex.)

Another "distrcit" of the gardens where a simialr pond like the one shown above, only difference there is one element that makes it better....me!

At a lookout point, with a view of the city of Granada

A stone pattern on the walway. It must have been the family crest of the royal family that reigned within the palace.

Another cool water garden within the complex. I love the square shaped yews

Another view of the city. This is more or less the outskirts of the area. You can also see the old security walls that used to protect the city.

A cool stairwell made entirely from stone that has two small streams that run through the handrails.

A view of the stairwell looking down it from the first landing

A view of the entire stairwell from the top landing

Walking down the other side of the water stairway. Crazy windy path, and decnently steep

Cool pathway that is completely covered by natural vegetation

Labyrinth type remains that were most likely used for a market or something along those lines were locals can come in. They also might have been areas for workers for the royal family.

Granada part 2...Alhambra

This is one of the beautiful tile artworks that are littered all over the Alhambra. Becuase displaying people, animals, etc is not permitted to be used in artwork umong the Muslim religion, they have to use geometry and Coran verses. You will see more of this in upcoming photos.

A view of Granada looking through a minneret.

A horseshoe archway with some of the intricate Islamic detailing.

A close up of some of the mosaic tile work in the Alhambra. My Arabic is horrible so all I can make out is "Allah". An extreme rough translation of the script is something about how "without god there is nothing, or there is no other god but Allah" something along those lines.

An awesome picture of one of the multiple courtyards with a reflecting pool in the Alhambra

Another courtyard within the complex.

The detailing within another horseshoe archway. Notice the arabic script above it.

One of the really ornate ceilings. Keep in mind that all the ceilings, walls, archways. etc are entirely made of stone.

Another Coran verse carved within the walls. Whats really amazing is that the building is made mainly with stone, so how they were able to make all the detail work in an era where power tools did not exist is beyond me.

Another variation of ceiling detail

Another mosaic tile pattern on the walls.

Check out this dome that is entirely stone. Pretty talented construction workers.

A very programmatic, and well planned courtyard. Check out the linear waterway that leads to the fountain in the middle. You will see more of these waterways that are extremely planned. Remeber, in Islamic architecture, they can have people, animals, etc, so their style is going to be very geometrically planned.

Check out this dome and the shape of it. This is a constantly reocurring shape within Islamic architecture and the following pictures.

The beginning of the gardens that completely surrounnd the Alhambra. Some of these gardens are absolutely breath taking.