Florida and Iberia, Spring 2018: Olives, Make Up for Alhambra, Cordoba, Skipping Seville, Huelva

Lovely dumb luck again, we ended up following the Green Olive Oil Trail on our road from Granada to Cordoba. It's 100+ miles of olive groves, bike and hiking trails, just made for leisure. It certainly made for a beautiful drive.

We stopped at one quiet spot so I could see the trees up close. Harvest comes in autumn, so not much to see, but interesting nonetheless.

Then we saw this. Whoa!

Turns out we stumbled on the La Mota castle above the town of Alcalá la Real, originally a Moorish fortress dating back to the 1200's. Fortunately, we had all the time in the world this day, so we detoured here for several hours, and felt we enjoyed the experience just as much as we would have Alhambra.

The climb to the fortress was pretty impressive; alas, no elevators for those not able enough to climb stairs and steep walkways.

The entire town used to be inside the fortress wall, but now, of course, lies below.

La Mota is superbly restored, excavated, maintained, etc. And the greatest thing about it is that one could walk absolutely everywhere; there were no areas closed to visitors.

A large cathedral was added in the 1600's. Possession of the fort went back and forth among Moors and Spaniards a couple of times.

Old city and a bazillion olives in the background

Yes, we did all 58 high steps to the highest rampart.

The cathedral was built over an old mosque crypt.

One of the entryway doors. Townspeople in, traders and farmers out.

On the road again, and Oh! the Poppies!!

Had to go see what these were, lots of orchards of them along our way. Turns out they're almonds. Did a little reading...the U.S. produces more than half the world's supply. Who knew? This girl didn't.

We can't get enough storks! Love their nests on top of powerline poles, industrial brick chimneys. Sometimes we've seen little heads in the nest as well as both mom and dad.

So we next headed for Cordoba, home of the Spanish Inquisition, a huge emirate, lots of Allen stuff.

But the joke was that I booked us a one-night room in Cordoba, Argentina, which we didn't discover until we wound our way through incredibly narrow streets in the old city to the address of our hotel, only to find no hotel there. That's when I went back through my booking e-mail and discovered my mistake.

(The new hotel was awful, explains why it was somewhat inexpensive in this expensive town, my least favorite night of our trip.)

Anyway, we were within walking distance of Cordoba's old city, so off we went.

At the end of April Cordoba does holds a floral crosses festival, so we saw lively sights like this around town.

Awful motel notwithstanding, we had a memorable meal for all the right reasons in Cordoba. We headed to a recommended place only to be turned away because Friday nights all tables are reserved in advance. However, the nice guy at the door recommended another place to us that was just wonderful. Allen's amazing local pork meal came in two minutes, no kidding, while I had an Andalusian cheese soup with pear pearls and trimmings.

And a full moon to boot.

We wanted to go to Seville, but the city was really expensive, 97% booked for the weekend, according to booking.com, so we waved at it as we went past after leaving Cordoba.

Of note near Seville were four of these towers way off in the distance. Turns out they're solar plants!

Solucar Complex

The Solucar Complex is a unique technological center, the only solar complex in the world to gather together the three types of solar technology (tower, parabolic trough and PV) in commercial operation, pilot projects, and R+D+i laboratories. The Complex, which is located just outside of Sanlúcar la Mayor, Seville, Spain, has183 MW in commercial operation.

Then, after being so disdainful of Huelva when our ship stopped there earlier in the month, we ended up spending the night there because it was a common-sense waypoint. Again, we didn't find a whole lot to do, but we did enjoy happy hour in the plaza featuring a prominent statue of Columbus, who apparently set sail for the New World at least once from here, and found our way into dinner at a local place full of families just out of Saturday night mass.