Preschool Field Trip

The first week that Danny and Sophie were in the same class happened to contain their first class field trip! The children went into Rota to visit the castle, the Cathedral, and visited several Nativity scenes. The parents were invited to attend, so I put Alex in childcare for a few hours and joined them!

In Spain, the Nativity scenes are a big part of Christmas. Of course all the churches have a display, but I was surprised that the main town square had a huge structure built. Danny said it looked like a barn, and Sophie called it "the farm where Jesus was born."

We went into the castle first, which Danny was super excited about. Sophie was intent on holding hands with the other younger kids in the class so they wouldn't wander away. :-)  It was the first time we toured the whole castle, and the kids loved being up on the battlements. I told Danny the knights used to shoot arrows from the spaces in between each pillar, and he had fun peeking out and saying, "pow pow pow!"

The views from the top of the castle are awesome! You can see the lighthouse, the cathedral, and the whole town! It's very cool.

Next we went into the Cathedral, which the kids have been in before. Each chapel is sponsored by a different brotherhood with a different particular devotion to Mary. Each one has different depictions of Mary and Jesus.  During Holy Week, the large statues from each chapel are paraded through the streets. There is a museum next to the church where they house all the costumes and crowns, which the kids actually thought were really beautiful and amazing.

 The museum also had a very elaborate miniature Nativity scene. It was designed to look like the courtyard of Rota's own castle, complete with numerous figures and animals. It even rained inside the diorama! That was Danny's favorite part of the day, I think.

We also went into the former convent building to see their Nativity scene. Theirs was a recreation of Bethlehem, with beautifully intricate buildings and figures. 

 Finally, we went to the beach to have brown bag lunches while watching the waves. The kids definitely loved this part, since they had been asking to eat for an hour or so. Sophie actually said to the teacher that we had walked 100 miles. :-) The kids had a great time watching the waves break and eating their lunches.. and running around like crazy people. It was an exhausting trip, and I don't know for sure if I would go on the next trip, but we did have fun and it was nice to spend the day out in town with the kids.