Sevilla

During this last year, my son achieved many goals and one of them was being inducted into the Spanish Honor Society.  So, in his honor, while we were in Portugal we drove over to Spain and visited Sevilla.  What an amazing city full of history, wonderful architecture and culture.  We must have walked miles but enjoyed every minute of it.  We made him use his Spanish and when my mom needed a toothpick he did not know the name so he got creative and asked the waiter for the small thing that you use to clean your teeth with.  We all had such a good laugh about this but the very good natured waiter not only brought us the toothpicks but taught him how to say it in Spanish!
Let me share a few pics of our visit with you ... (remember that you can click on them to have a better view)

 One of the many rotundas in Sevilla.

 The entire bottom section of the Plaze de Espana is filled with these pictures which depict a special time in the history of each of Spain's provinces.

 A panaromic view of the Plaza.

 Lunch time - my son enjoyed a Paella de Marisco - Seafood Paella.

 We visited the palace - these are some of the grounds.

 They had beautiful gardens with beautiful blooming bushes, fountains, statues and mazes - very conducive for those trysts that you always read about in historical romance novels :-) 

The Hall of Tapestries - it is filled with absolutely beautiful tapestries depicting various battles, the world map, and balls of those days where the woman wore the most beautiful ball gowns!  You can judge their size by looking at the size of my husband who is 6'1" tall - he's the one in the red shirt.

Unfortunately we never made it to the Cathedral on time.  We forgot that as we crossed over into Spain that we were an hour ahead and by the time we got to the Cathedral, we would not have enough time to visit.  I guess we will leave that on our list of things to visit if we ever make it back to Spain.