MALE POSTSCRIPT: Final day in Paree (10 days ago already):

[Short political digression - skip to avoid rants]  So I was sitting in Le Village, a bar near Rue Lepic, around 5pm.  Pamela gone looking for fabrics, I'm not even drunk yet, but unfortunately OD'd on the news.  Unfortunately, these devices keep one up-to-date with the latest ball-crushing events, which now occur with daily regularity.  If only our G/I tracts worked that well when we traveled. 

And I started getting depressed.  Had a hard time finishing my beer, and I realized I needed to get moving.  Because I was in fucking Paris, for one more day, and what's the point of wasting it thinking about the orange pencil-dick?  I wished there was someone at the bar to talk to, but, no.  Then I had a fleeting wonder, how happy would I feel sitting there in a world without trump?

It was really hard to imagine, so I got up and kept walking...

After Seville we spent 2 more nights in Paris at the lovely Hesshenshaw flat, on our way back.  A new bistro on the ground floor (re)opened in our absence, which of course was utilized:

Strange Woman @ Marcel & Clémentine

I said earlier that I hadn't done anything in Paris, but that's not true.  While I slacked off in their beautiful flat, bingeing on bad news, I also tore thru Donn's just-published middle-management thriller - and I'm a really slow reader.  A real page-ripper and bodice-turner:  

I won't give it away, but the scene in the N.Y.C. coffee shop with the zombies with baseball-stitched lips could've been straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It cheered me up immensely.  And the vicious leprechaun character Cooper who kicked some zombie butts would've been played by this guy in the 70's:

Before there was Radar, there was Michael J. Pollard

(Just like with Kellyanne, this has been a 'free commercial'!)

Just walked on our final day.  Paris is such a drag.

Montmartre Street

Sacre Coeur from below

Sacre Coeur Cistern

Bell Tower

It's kinda ugly after seeing all the Moorish edifices

The shops have weird mirrors

But erudite designs

Really clever names too

Really cool bar we may have already frequented

Bathroom Commie

"Love the wine you're with."

 I saved this one - the bar was actually in Seville -

Happy now

Gare du Nord

Lazy Man's Guide to Paris and Andalusia:

* Gare du Nord is bigger than the Alcázar.  Even if you think you know it, you can get lost.  Go early.

* Sometimes the best things are small - like finding a perfect latté @ 8am when you're desperate and about to enter a museum.

* But epiphanies never last.  Keep looking for the next one.

* Icelandair is just fine - I was a jerk about them - and their flights leave and arrive later, a help with jet lag.

* Stay fired up.  Drink a lot of whatever works, eat often but don't get weighed down.  I carried this flask, and spiked my café all the time.  If Red Bull is this good, go for it.  (Your mileage may vary.)

* It's SO easy to fk up when you're traveling.  Always keep your passport in the same place - especially going thru airports - don't freak out if you get lost in Seville (it's like Venice) - ask for help even if you don't know the language.  It turns out, they don't hate us, they feel sorry for us.

* In fact, some strangers are really friendly!

Daffy & Friend

Others, not so much:

Concorde, Non!

MALE:

The day before we left Spain, we toured The Alcázar in Seville, a massive palace built by Moors and taken over by Christian kings in the 1500s.  Stunning in its own right - and only 2 Euros for old gringos!

Exterior wall, tiny tourist

She was too late the first time we went

Entrance from the inside, nearby Cathedral tower

We had nice weather!

Palace entrance - doesn't do it justice

Palace ceiling

Another ceiling!

Palace interior

Hard to capture

Interior courtyard

Back garden

Skeptical Japanese tourists

Garden portal

Another portal

A gringo tourist got yelled at for going on top of that wall.

The view was worth it

Some kinda hedge

Detail

Hedges sprouting palm trees

Underground Crypt

Lotsa Nuns

FEMALE

This post focuses on photos of the incredible Mezquita mosque-cathedral of Córdoba, begun in a small way in the 8th century and expanded over the next two. It's basically a Muslim mosque with a later (16th-century and on) periphery of Christian chapels and an enormous cathedral hacked out of the center, which destroyed some 400 of the bewilderingly beautiful arch-topped Moorish columns. Many of those columns were themselves recycled from Roman ruins, and the site itself was originally a Christian Visigoth church. There is a long history of back-and-forth and even shared-space worship by the two religions on this site. At this time, Catholic and state authorities deny Muslims the right to worship in one of their masterpieces. The design is a clear example of the contrasts between the two religions: anthropocentric art vs. calligraphic, geometric, and vegetative forms, for instance. Both traditions used gold for embellishment, but in strikingly different manners: sheets of gilding vs. mosaics and highlights. The Christian architectural tradition is one of symmetry that directs the eye, the Muslim's more asymmetrical and mystical.

The highlights for me were the arches of the prayer space themselves, the 10th-century mihrab (prayer niche), and the 13th-century Mudéjar (Muslim artisans working in the Christian era) parts, some of which were tantalizingly sealed off from full view.    

Christian carving above Muslim arches

"Forest" of arches

Spooky!

More arches

Keyhole

Gold-bedecked Mihrab

Mihrab dome

Cathedral showing Muslim arches surrounding

Chapels upon chapels

Christian excess, topped by scallop symbol of the Koran