Day 6 (Seville to Cordoba to Madrid): November 8, 2016

Day 6 (Seville to Cordoba to Madrid):

Woke up at 7:00 am and had a nice buffet breakfast downstairs at the hotel.  We then grabbed a cab to the train station and took the 9:30 AM train to Cordoba.  Since we were heading to Madrid that night we had to bring our bags with us.  It was a 45 minute train ride and when we got there our guide and porter met us right when we got off the train.  The porter took our luggage and we scheduled to meet him back at the train station at 4:30 PM.  We then grabbed a cab with the guide and went to one of the entrances to the old city.  We started the tour through the old Jewish Quarter.  Not much remained, but there was an old synagogue that we looked at along with a Jewish sculpture of Maimonides.  We continued through the old cobblestone streets and went to the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. 

This was a Muslim Mosque that was converted to a Roman Catholic Church in 1236.  We then went to the Alcazar of Cordoba  and walked around the grounds for a while. 

We then finished up our 3 hour tour with the guide and went to lunch at a local restaurant in town.  I was adventurous and ordered the Oxtail Stew along with a beer.  The meet tasted like brisket and was pretty good.  We walked around town a little longer and spent some time at the Sephardic Museum (nothing special) and then grabbed a cab back to the train station.  We met the porter who had our luggage and then took a train to Madrid.  When we arrived in Madrid we waited on a long line to get a cab to take us to our hotel.  The Hotel (Hotel IBEROSTAR de las Letras) was on the main street and about a 15 minute drive in rush hour traffic.  We settled in and then changed for dinner.  We had a dinner reservation at Botin’s (The oldest operating restaurant in the world, Est. 1725) For dinner, we met Hannah’s friends Marley and Hailey who go to Tulane and were doing a semester abroad in Madrid.  I ordered the grilled shrimp and shared a pitcher of Sangria with the table.  Interesting to note, Al asked for some butter for her bread.  They brought out two small slabs of butter for her.  When we checked the bill, they actually charged 2 euro for each butter (Crazy!!!).  After dinner, we went over to supposedly one of the best Churro’s and Chocolate places in Madrid.  It was good.  You get 6 hot Churros along with a bowl of hot chocolate to dip the Churro’s in.  After dessert, we took a cab over to the girl’s apartment so they could show us where they lived and asked us about the “mold” situation they were having in the kitchen.  Their landlord wasn’t doing anything about it and they were concerned as to what to do.  We hung out there for a while and then took a cab back to the hotel.  We got back to the room around 11:45 PM after a very long day.