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May 9 – 27, 2009
PREFACE
For our next CATHEDRAL QUEST, we
considered a number of options. My
wife said that she would like to see some of the modern architecture of Spain
instead of old cathedrals. I had
purchased a book on Moorish architecture and had some desire to see this style of
architecture. Some time back I had
purchased a model kit of Sagrada Familia, the Anton Gaudi church in Barcelona,
not knowing anything about it. I
knew very little of the history or geography of Spain although my wife had
visited a number of years before we met. We
had listened to and watched the
Teaching Company DVD course entitle “The Other 1492” which we found to be a
fascinating of history of the era of Ferdinand and Isabel and before. So we decided that we
would like to visit Spain, but it is a big country.
Much of what my wife wanted to see was more in the north and east, and I
was more interested in the Moorish architecture of the south and west.
Looking at the map of Spain, it appeared to be a lot of driving to cover
what we both wanted to see. We began
considering a tour and found a Globus tour that included almost everything that
we both wanted to see. The tour
would spent time in all of the major cities and referred to visiting a number of
cathedrals. I contacted Globus to
confirm that indeed we would experience those churches.
I was assured that we would. So
we booked this tour for May. We
also decided to go to Madrid, the starting point of the tour, a few days early
in order to rest from the flight as well as to see part of Madrid on our own.
The time allotted to Barcelona seemed to short, so we made plans and
reservations to return to Barcelona for four days at the end of the tour.
For those taking tours we recommend going a few days before the tour
starts and remaining in the area or going somewhere else at the end.
We had a very congenial group and an excellent tour guide.
Again, as we experience in 2004 on our Italian tour, there are advantages and
disadvantages of an organized tour. Our
hotel accommodations were excellent except in Seville where the hotel was too far
from the center of activity. All of
the included meals were in the hotels where we stayed.
The food was very good but again we liked to find local restaurants and
experience the local atmosphere. It
was nice not to have to drive and to have someone load and unload suit cases.
Covering this amount of territory entailed a lot of very early morning
starts. Our real disappointment was
that we didn’t see all of the cathedrals and other churches that we assumed or
were told that we would. We did visit nine cathedrals and twelve other churches.
Please visit each day of our trip to
see photos and learn about the churches and other interesting sites that we
visited.
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