Patios de Cordoba

Cordoba is a city in Andalucia, southern Spain, and the capital of the province of Cordoba on the Guadalquivir river, it was founded in ancient Roman times as Corduba by Claudius Marcellus.Today a moderately sized modern city, the old town contains many impressive architectural reminders of when Cordoba was the thriving capital of the Caliphate of Cordoba that governed almost all of the Iberian peninsula. It has been estimated that Cordoba, with up to 500,000 inhabitants in the tenth century, was the second largest city in the world after Constantinople.Cordoba is famous for its floral patio arrangements. Residents take great pride in their patios and compete to have the most beautiful. The city's old quarter is also famous for its distinctively white buildings and balconies decorated with flowers. The sidewalks of the town are also populated with orange trees, and

residents and tourists can occasionally be seen plucking an orange from one of the low branches.

Alcazar de Sevilla

The art of motion-picture making within the Kingdom of Spain or by Spanish filmmakers abroad is collectively known as Spanish Cinema.
In recent years, Spanish cinema has achieved high marks of recognition. In the long history of Spanish cinema, the great filmmaker Luis Buñuel was the first to achieve universal recognition,

followed by Pedro Almodóvar in the 1980s. Spanish cinema has also seen international success over the years with films by directors like Segundo de Chomón, Florián Rey, Luis García Berlanga, Juan Antonio Bardem, Carlos Saura, Julio Médem and Alejandro Amenábar. Woody Allen, upon receiving the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in 2002 in Oviedo remarked: "when I left New York, the most exciting film in the city at the time was Spanish, Pedro Almodovar's one.

Semana Santa (night)

The Holy Week. A tradition that dates from medieval times which has spread to other cities in Andalusia, the "Semana Santa en Sevilla" is notable for featuring the procession of "pasos", lifelike wood or plaster sculptures of individual scenes of the events that happened between Jesus' arrest and his burial, or images of the Virgin Mary showing grief for the torture and killing of her son. In

Málaga the lifelike wooden or plaster sculptures are called "tronos" and they are carried through the streets by penitents dressed in long purple robes, often with pointed hats, followed by women in black carrying candles for up to 11 hours. These pasos and tronos are physically carried on the necks of costaleros (literally "sack men", because of the costal, a sack-like cloth that they wear over their neck, to soften the burden) or "braceros" (this name is popular in Leon), and can weigh up to five metric tonnes. The pasos are set up and maintained by hermandades and cofradías, religious brotherhoods that are common to a specific area of the city.

 

Hospital de los Venerables

The Hospital de los Venerables (officially the Hospital de Venerables Sacerdotes, Hospital of Venerable Priests, popularly known as the Hospital of the Venerable) of Seville, Spain, is a baroque 17th-century building which served as a residence for priests. It currently houses the Velázquez Center, dedicated to the famous painter Diego Velázquez. It is located in the Plaza de los Venerables, in the center of the Barrio de Santa Cruz and close to the Murillo Gardens [es], the Seville Cathedral and Alcázar.