Three ancient spanish cities

Friday, May 15, 2015
Cartagena, Alhambra, Cadiz, Murcia, Spain and Canary Islands
(14-16 May)

We are now up to Thursday 14th where we docked at 0800hrs at the port of Cartagena, we have been sailing every night and apart from the odd roll the sea has been very calm .

From Cartagena we were bussed to the town of Elche, its claim to fame is the fabulous collection of palms from all over the world. There are more than 300,000 of them and site is now World Heritage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmeral_of_Elche

Before going to the Palmeral we had a look inside the St Maria Church and a walk through the Municipal Park which also had a group of people weaving various ornamental and religious artifacts from palm leaves that were a golden yellow colour. This was obtained by shading the palm from the sun – much the same as we obtain white asparagus.

We also learnt that there are male and female palm trees and these days the female ones are pollinated by hand by a man scrambling up and waving the pollen swatch which had been taken from the male tree

The highlight of the Palmeral was a very old palm with a central trunk but seven branches coming out about 2 m from the ground .

See Imperial Palm in the above link.

Another hot day so I spent the afternoon writing on board the ship the last blog, Leith and some others went to explore a Roman amphitheatre nearby and gave numerous examples of their gardens throughout the ages

Next day was Motril another industrial city but is the nearest port to the Alhambra in Granada. To get there we drove about an hour through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains called the Alpujarras. Very dry looking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpujarras

A very good road and very scenic

For more information regarding the Alhambra please see

We first went to the Generalife Gardens all the flowers were out and not a cloud in the sky and yet again very hot.

I decided not to walk through the palace since Leith and I had been through twice when we had been there about seven years ago, however, Leith went and said it was just has crowded. We had about 2.5hrs there which is certainly far too short

Next day and 182nm later we arrived in Cadiz a lovely town on a peninsula of land. This was the jumping off point for Seville . This entailed a 100min drive plus walking through various gardens of about 3kms.and on the go for about 9hrs (0830hrs-1730hr) so we decided to explore Cadiz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A1diz

This is a very old city first founded by the Phoenicians around 1100BC, then the Romans, Moors, slowly it was revitalized in the 16th century with its golden age being in the 18thC.

It therefore has many architectural styles we walked through the old sector with its narrow streets to the most magnificent Cathedral I have ever seen (Church of Santa Cruz) This very large with many side chapels around the main alter. Half way down the main aisle was a large area bounded by a decorative iron structure which was where the choir sat in ornate wooden stalls, each side of them was an ornate organ not only with the vertical pipes but also some smaller ones sticking out horizontally. See photos. We spent about an hour there while we had to pay this included an audio guide which was very informative.

I am sure Seville would have a similar Cathedral but our group only drove around it. Another hot day

Back to the ship

Comments

Nancy Eddy
2015-05-19

Wonderful pictures. This trip is in an area I've never visited, so it's especially interesting. I'm so glad to be on your blog. Best to you both!

2025-02-13

Comment code: Ask author if the code is blank