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.
