Hello, Blogonauts.

Greetings from Seville! Our stately hotel lies in the heart of the city's oldest quarter, where cobblestone streets are often so narrow and windy they feel like the end of a twisting funnel. But these skinny streets are brimming with lovely tiled architecture, upscale shops, outdoor cafes, and tapas bars.

(I said tapas bars, not topless bars, silly reader.)

Tapas are small portions of scrumptious Spanish cuisine. In restaurants or tapas bars, each plate can be had for 2-to-3 €. It's a delightful way to nibble and graze around the city, and many tapas bars have outdoor tables where patrons can watch passers-by and listen to strolling, strumming musicians.

Once we settled into the hotel, we muscled our way through our jet-lag by visiting the enormous Seville Cathedral, where the bones of Christopher Columbus lie entombed. The Cathedral's construction was simultaneously a religious undertaking and a political act. It was built atop the foundation of the mosque that the Spanish king had destroyed when the whole of southern Spain was recaptured after 700 years of Moorish rule. A remnant of the earlier Muslim architecture is the Geralda, the soaring bell tower which was converted from the mosque's minaret. We ascended to the tower's top to take in the wide view of the surrounding city. (The ramped walkway made the climb relatively easy.)

Moorish design comprises an enormous portion of Andalusia's architectural heritage. Colorfully crafted tiles adorn the interiors and exteriors of buildings, and scalloped and ornamented arches are common. Another tower, El Torre del Oro, a fragment of the former battlements that surrounded the city, still stands beside the river.

But even before the Moors captured southern Spain, the Romans left their imprint on Seville. According to legend, the city was founded by Hercules, and one of the city's larges plazas is known as La Alameda de Hércules. When the plaza was built, two columns that had been excavated from a nearby Roman temple were re-erected and topped with reproductions of statues of Hercules and Julius Caesar.

Tomorrow we will include a further exploration of Seville's Moorish past in our wanderings. Blog to you later!