Days 15-17 - Sevilla - Granada - Valencia

We headed to Granada by train and had a nice trip up to a lookout over the Alhambra. We then had dinner in the center of town, right next to the catherdral (2nd largest in Spain after Sevilla's.) After exploring the city we headed back to our hotel which used to be a monestary. We woke up to head out to a morning tour of the Alhambra and the Generalife Gardens. Our tour guide did a great job explaining what we were seeing and after we ended the tour we met our bus to Valencia back at the hotel. We are here now and will resume our classes tomorrow.

Day 14 - Sevilla

We met this morning to board a chartered bus to take us out in the countryside where we could have a hands-on bullfighting experience. The cortijo was a great setting as we started with some sodas and plates of tortilla de patatas, iberian ham and sausages. I'll let the photos and video clips tell the rest of the story. You may notice that the professional bullfighter who had taught us yesterday joined us in the plaza de toros to be out maestro.

Day 13 - Sevilla

Another doubleheader of speakers as we started with a professional "torero." He explained the many aspects of bullfighting and answered the questions the kids had from having seen a bullfight. We then had a private concert with a flamenco and classical Spanish guitarist. He also explained the many styles and answered questions.

Day 12 - Sevilla

Today was another full day with two special guests. We had a member of a local rock band explain the history of modern Spanish music from Franco to the present. After lunch with their families, the students returned for an amazing tour of the Hospital de la Caridad. This is a true treasure of a church, full of Murillo paintings, and the students loved the explanation given by our guide, the appropriately named Jesus. He is a professor at the University of Sevilla and has a real talent for making our kids understand high level content. He then took us to the University (an old tobacco factory) where we used a classroom to have a great liturature lesson of a very short but fascinating story. After saying goodby to Jesus we went to the Plaza de Espana to see the huge builings built for the Hispanoamerican Expo and, after squeezing out an elderly couple, we took our group picture infront of Mr. Collier's favorite city (there are 51 provincial cities represented by these decorative benches.)

Day 11 - Sevilla

Today we had a full day of interaction as the guest speaker was a soccer journalist who spoke about the history of soccer in Spain and how the leagues work. He did a great job of asking the boys questions. After classes we headed to a restaurant in Triana where the cooks prepared their specialties in front of us as they explained the dish and the steps and a wine expert taught the group how to appreciate Spanish wine and how different wine would go with each tapa we were eating.

Day 9 and 10 - Sevilla - Cortijo El Esparragal - Cordoba

On Monday we headed out to a cortijo, what is similar to a ranch ar hacienda.  We had a tour of its operations, it own Roman ruins, which included some spring that were used as baths as far back as the 2nd century.  When we returned to the main house, three chefs taught us how to make two famous Andalusian soups: Salmorejo and Ajo Blanco.  We broke into two teams and the chefs acted as judges.  After eating our soups we were served a neverending array of tapas and dessert.

Tuesday was dedicated to Cordoba, once intelectual capital of Europe.  We had a tour of a Saphardic Jewish home and Sinagogue (one of three medieval synogagues left in Spain) were we learned much about Jewish life in Spain leading up to the Spanish inquisition.  We then went to a museum of medieval torture and of course the main event, the once mosque now cathedral.  The students were also served a nice array of Tapas typical of Cordoba.