Sevilla: Alcazar

The Courtyard of the Maidens

One of the treats of visiting Sevilla is getting to see Moorish architecture. The moors ruled this part of Southern Spain from about 712 – 1248 AD, when it was incorporated into Christian Spanish rule.
The Alcazar in Sevilla started as a Moorish fort and then as a royal place. It is a great representation of traditional spanish Muslim architecture or mudéjar. Mudéjar was a unique style that represented both Christian and Muslim style symbols.

The Virgin of the Navigators

The Virgin of the Navigators is a christian painting that shows Mary protecting the explorers. You can see Christopher Columbus represented in the painting.

Inside the palace, many symbols are represented in the designs.

The palace also has a nice garden to stroll around.

More inside photos

Nice wall tapestry hanging in Alcazar.

As one can see, the Alcazar is on the must see list of a visit to the beautiful city of Seville.

Why are there no new garden pics

As a blog that started out to be mostly about gardening one may ask where are the garden pictures? To be honest, more is dying than living in the garden. I started seeds for the fall but neglected them all. They are dead now too. Last weekend I pulled out the last of the dying tomato plants and cleared some weeds out of the landscaping beds; but there are no new plants. I have two square foot gardens that are empty right now (except one oregano plant). I really haven’t had the time to invest in the garden for the fall. I am hoping that maybe this weekend I can get to a nursery and infill my square foot gardens with store bought plants so we have something this fall to eat; my only disappointment with that is that they won’t be organic.
I have no pictures today but there is hope for the upcoming months – the key limes are growing and we are expecting at least 6 grapefruits. The muscadine grapes look sorry but are edible and sweet. Of course there is also always mint growing like a weed.
Some day I will get my gardening act together again!

London – The Globe

A visit to London would not be complete without a visit to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Ideally we would have loved to see a show at the theater but we visited off season. We settled for a tour instead.

The globe theatre that stands there now is not the original one; the original one burned down in 1613. During my first trip to London in 1995 they had just started construction on the current theater. I was happy that this time around I was able to visit the finished product.

As you can see everything was carefully constructed to look like the original as much as possible. They even replicated the thatched roof.

The stage

You can see the detail put into the balconies.

Another view of the stage.

The ceiling of the stage.

Shakespeare’s will in the museum.

A model of how the city looked during the time of the globe theater.

A timeline of all Shakespeare’s works.

Outside view

If you can, definitely go see a play there. You can be royalty and sit in a seat; or you can be groundling and watch from standing room only. Even if you can’t catch a play the theater is worth a visit for the tour and the artifacts in the museum. It should take you a good 2-3 hours to get through it all. Enjoy.

Asheville River Arts District

During a recent road trip to visit an old friend she suggested we spend a day doing the Asheville River Arts District studio stroll one Sunday.

The river arts district is an old industrial area of Asheville near the French Broad River that was re purposed into studios for local artisans. Every second Saturday the artisans open up their studios for guests to come in and watch them work. We attended during a twice a year event that opens the studios all weekend.

We hopped on a trolley that took us from studio to studio.

We also made a pit stop at the Wedge Brewery which was surrounded by metal artwork.

After a beer we walked over to watch a glass blower in action.

More studios

We got impatient waiting for the trolley so decided to walk a bit. Saw some interesting graffiti and fairy-tale house on our way.

I ended the afternoon with this light and refreshing local cider at a nearby cafe.

Visiting the studios was a great way to spend an afternoon. If you ever make it to Asheville I suggest you do your own Studio Stroll.

Doctor Who?

Dr who weeping angel

A large group on my friends are big fans of Dr. Who (Dr. Who is a long running science fiction series on PBS). My husband recently became a fan. Since a new season with a new doctor was to begin last weekend, he decided he wanted to throw a Dr.Who premiere party at our house. I was reluctant to help plan the event but after seeing his excitement with planning the event I decided to help out.
My contribution started out as volunteering to make the Dalek cakes. I followed the linked recipe for the ingredients and searched online for inspiration for the decoration. After some research I decided I needed this pop up pan to make my cakes. It worked out well forming cupcakes with just the right slant. I just had to trim a bit off the bottoms to make the robot’s bottom flat. I substituted whole wheat flour for white flour and no one noticed.

The ingredients called for melted chocolate mixed with heavy cream. It was a liquidity mess pouring this over the cakes.

I tried to attach six-lets to the side but they kept falling off. When I tried to move some cakes around, they fell apart.

I pieced them back together and continued my decoration. I used pocky, signs, and food spray paint.

I was so disappointed with the way they turned out but the guests really loved them. Plus the cake was pretty good too. (Hint: Secret ingredient in cake mix was amaretto).

After I was done constructing cakes, I helped my husband with some of his decorations.

This was on the ceiling of the bathroom to creep out the guests as well as some eyeliner so you can remember that you saw him.

Angry weeping angel finds you when you close the door. Don’t blink!

After guests arrived, they could cut out their own mask.

Or make their own cute Adipose.

Our guests brought over some more fun treats as well.

Sonic Screwdrivers

Cybermites (rum balls)

Jelly babies

For non-sweets we had Silurian pods, bowtie pasta, green stuff was for the Radioactive-Spuds. We also had k-9 dogs (hot dogs) and fish fingers (not pictured).

And finally I tried my hand at food craft once more. I made marshmallow Adipose.

The night was fun for all. I even enjoyed watching the episode. Ssssh don’t tell my husband but I may be enjoying this Dr. Who more and more 😉