Summer Session 2

Summer Session 2 is well underway and there have already been a few adventures! After the weekly wednesday night Encuentro meeting at Iglesia Prosperidad we took our packed dinners to Parque de los Principes for a picnic. Sevilla gets a little hot in the summer when the sun is out, but once the sun goes down and it starts to cool off, you can't resist being outside to enjoy the city.

When we finished eating we hopped on the bus and headed over to the Monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas, also known as Monasterio de la Cartuja. After the monestary was closed it was converted to a factory of ceramic tiles in 1840. (you can see one of the chimneys in the background of the picture) It continued to produce tiles until 1982 and now has been converted to a museum of contemporary art and ceramics.

What brought us there was the a free flamenco show in the courtyard of the monastery. The show involved a guitarist, singer, flautist, and two palmeras (clappers) and a dancer. The show truly was amazing and very impressive for being free. We were glad that we came early enough to get good seats.

A couple days later on friday we headed over to the beautiful city of Cádiz. Professors José Maria and Salva came along to be our tour guides for the day. Cádiz is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the Iberian Peninsula and possible of all southwestern Europe so needless to say there is a lot of history to see. We started the tour near the old tobacco factory.

The cathedral was built on the sight of an older cathedral that burned down in 1596. It was rebuilt beginning in 1776 in the baroque style, but since it took so long to build it changed hands through different architects and also contains elements of rococo and neoclassical. You can clearly see the different stages of building by what materials were used over the 116 year period of being built.

Next we headed over to the Torre Tavira to get an amazing view of the entire city. It is the tallest remaining tower left in the city that was used by merchants to see the merchant ships coming into the harbor. It now contains a pinhole camera on top that projects images of the city to a room below. It is the only cámara oscura in all of Spain

After seeing the city through the camera than we were able to go up on the top of the tower and have a look for ourselves. It was really cool to be able to see the ocean on all sides of the peninsula. This picture is looking down at Calle Sacramento, the longest street in the city.

The group with the cathedral and ocean in the background.

San Antonio Church. The Spanish Constitution of 1812 was proclaimed in this plaza.

Cádiz ends up being a lot of the students favorite city in Spain for good reason. We ended our day together near the beach. Some students decided to stay longer while others headed back on the bus.