The first stop and my favorite was Cadiz - with its smell of sea, sparkly taste of white wine, soft bright sand, strong ocean wind on suntanned face, the never ending sound of never ending ocean and unimaginable whiteness of houses from above view. It seemed like the time has stopped in this town.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Second favorite was Granada. And here starts my dilemma ocean vs. mountains, more on that later. Granada had an amazing relaxed atmosphere of a very interesting mix between Arab and spanish culture. One can grab delicious Arab pastry (almost better than those I tried in Istanbul!!!) and then walk 15min and be in the most typical Spanish bar with wine, tapas and friendly spaniards.
One of the superb memories from Granada: my friend- Laura had a "series-of-unfortunate-events"-week, so the sweetest moment was when we were about to indulge into our dinner-free-huge-tapa, I asked:
-So, I guess your unlucky week is over?
Before answering Laura took a sip of white wine and said:
- Definitely over!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sevilla deserves the title of the capital of Andalusia - it has all the qualities:dirty, large city with weird transportation system and loud bunches of tourists "stalking" sights with their maps and cameras. It also gave me a feeling of desperately wanting to look better and more important than it is. The best detail was the cathedral! (which was actually a Muslim mosque, before being redesigned as Catholic temple in order to serve to their god). It is a huge cathedral and one can easily imagine how people in 16-17th century felt entering it - may be taking it for a miracle of God! Funny thing to think about!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The last town on my list -Cordoba did not impress me much. It had too many tourists and too little to see. Plus my first clouds in a week surprised me in a bad way. But it just means that I had more time and will to aimlessly wonder around the town and take some, I must say it, great shots :)
---------------------------------------------------
Going back again to my search of a reason of such a cheerfulness of Spaniards. I came up with a simple explanation (KISS principle, Keep It Simple Stupid!) - they are enjoying life (period). I have no idea are they aware that life is just too short? or it is in their genes to be so cool? May be, just may be, the answer was given by my Prague Spanish teacher (an andalus!!) - La vida solo se vive una vez! -Life is lived only once. So true that it hurts!
Duzhe garnyj post! i znovu zh ne mozhu nasolodytys dokincha nejmovirnymy fotografijamy!! :)
ReplyDelete