West Iberia (Portugal/Spain)


one thing i liked (which i was half-excited abt before i went), was the moorish influence on their architecture. here are some examples, all from Seville - the Alcazar:

a lot of the time the muslim influence remains even after conversion to christianity - some of the inscriptions in the above palace read "christ" instead of "allah" but was in arabic. some current churches are in buildings that were mosques (Cordoba e.g.), but in Seville only a tower remains from the mosque after an earthquake - now it houses bells and is part of the cathedral.

the rest of it is gothic - the cathedral is the largest gothic one in the world (and biggest gothic wooden altar):

they had some pretty late gothic, the local version of which (in Lisbon) was known as the Manueline style:

they had their fair share of romanesque stuff as well, esp in Lisbon/Porto:

there were a number of towers / high points which we climbed:

and also bridges.