Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Pictures from Thanksgiving, Palacio Viana

As promised, here are the Thanksgiving pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tohjnya1/Thanksgiving#

We've also included a small group of pictures from the Palacio Viana:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tohjnya1/PalacioViana#

I go past the Palacio Viana every morning on my way to the school, but it took us a while to get around to going in for a visit. I expect there are still a number of hidden delights in Córdoba. This one is really not a palace at all; it´s the house of the noble Viana family, which occupied it from the 1500´s until the 20th century, when they donated it to the city. It´s a lovely series of patios and gardens, completely shut out from the rest of the city by high walls (other than one tantalizing view through an iron-barred window from the street). There´s also an interesting museum inside, although they didn´t allow pictures. The only way to visit the museum was with a guide, and the only guide was Spanish-speaking, and she got rather "tetchy" when I tried to translate for the English-speaking members of the group. (I suppose I was interfering with her delivery.) The most fun part of the Palacio was in the Patio of the Gardeners. It has ivy hedges along the walls, which were unremarkable during the day. We returned in the evening, when all of the other visitors were gone, and discovered that the hedges were filled with hundreds of birds´nests. The birds had come back to enjoy the peaceful nearly-tourist-free evening, flying about in huge flocks and making the most lovely music imaginable. What a very pleasant experience!

1 comment:

weakeyes said...

Say, did I see the famous pumpkin pie made with squash, in pix #2?
I assume all of the people are teachers; what countries are represented?

We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner out, we'll use the pix taken by the waiter for our Christmas card.
Mitsuko's handiwork, of course!