Cordoba, Spain

Hi Everyone.
I am in Cordoba. It is a small city in the south of Spain. I got here yesterday. After spending the last week in Jerez de la Frontera and Seville.Jerez is a nice city it has about 100,000 people. It is famous for wines called Sherry. There are actually 3 cities that make Sherry but Jerez is the biggesst and most famous. Xerez is another way to spell the name of the town. Sherry gets its name from the English peoples in ability to pronounce the name of the town correctly. I spent 3 days there. Just relaxing walking around and drinking Sherry. I visited a few of the bodegas and learned how the wines are made and tasted a few as well. There are 3 different grapes that they use. Palomino which is where all the dry sherries come from and Moscatell and Pedro Ximenez are the two grapes used to make the sweeter wines. The Pedro Ximenez is allowed to go to raisin and then the wines are made. It is a super dark almost black color and luxurious and sweet and a real charmer. I seldom recall seeing this wine in USA. If any of you ever spot one I recommend this if you like a little something sweet. The city is all decorated with chrismtas stuff and looks really nice at night. Here everyone comes out and hangs around in the streets until about 10 pm and then everyone disapears. Spain is so weird this way. All the cities are different from one another.Seville (sev-ee-yah) Is the hottest inhabited place on earth. in the summer it regularly reaches 45C or 125F that is CALOR. While I was there New Years weekend, the weather was quite cool. About 65F in the day and 50F at night. so about 13 and 8 C. Not cold cold but I need to wear a sweatshirt and jacket. I am losing my suntan. New Years eve was predictably wild. Spain is party place anyway and they love a good excuse to cut loose. Everyone eats grapes for good luck on NYE. New Year day I had a great breakfast of Churros con ChocoalateChurros are long thin doughnuts and they serve them with thick hot chocolate and you dip the churros and eat them. If you have any chocolate left at the end you drink it up. Very nutricious Im sure. It is a national thing here. I had to try it and oh...my...buddha, it is good!!
Hi everyone,It is the 6th of January now and I am in Spain in another Fairy tale city this one called Toledo.(TOE-lee-doe) Today is a national holiday here. It celebrates the 3 kings of orient who brought gifts to LBJ (the Little Baby Jesus). So today all the Spaniards exchange gifts and whoop it up!! Last night they had a oparade in the old quarter of the city and alll the revelers threw candy to the spectators. You have to love a parade where they throw candy at you!!!Spain is a beautiful country. It is a land of contradictions. The people are peaceful and fun loving and it is a very safe country to travel in. They LOVE TO DRINK!! People in all the cafes have anisado (seweet licorice flavored liquer) in their coffee all the time. First thing in the morning.The History of this great and ancient land is one of unfathomable bloodshed and cruelty. They burned literally millions of women alive at the stake(after, of course, they wre given a fair trial and found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt)for being witches.They murdered and raped millions of people in South and Central America over a period of 300 years and stole untold shiploads of gold and silver from thier victims. They hunted the indigenous people like animals and sold them as slaves to other Spaniards. They tortured and murdered millions of heretics (Muslims and Jews) and stole all their posessions. All with the blessing of thier kings queens and bishops and popes (who were the recipients of the looted treasures). They took the plunder and built castels and monuments and cathedrals and statues all over the place... So today Spain is peaceful safe and filled with magnificent architecture and castels all bearing silent testimony of their terrible bloody past. I am staying in a place called Castillo de San Servando. It is a castel. Yes a real castel, about 400 years old It is all refurbished and it is quite cosy. There are 90 guest beds on 3 floors. It is a little antiseptic for my taste but the bathrooms are most excellent and they have a great heater in my room which is important now because it is real cold here. aabout 6 degrees C or about 40 F. Cold as a well diggers ass. There was frost on the hill where my castel is this morning. Funny...2 months ago I was staying n a tree house in Turkey now I am staying in a castel in Spain. Ahh, the life of a world traveler. I am having a good and fun time as usual. Toledo is the home of the famous artist el Greco, but today his museum is closed. I guess I will stay another night in my castel and check out the museum tomorrow. This town is all on a hill so everywhere I walk is up and down up and down. Very aerobic. JJaaaahh.Happy New Year to all of you. I am going to go now. I will keep in touch. Write back.

Love

Rambling Robert the travelling man