29 October 2022 - Seville part 1

Miles driven today = 0

Total Miles to date = 2,800

We caught the bus into Seville this morning and although it was just after 10 when we got there the sun was still low in the sky giving everything a wonderful golden glow.  We walked fairly quickly through the fabulous Parque Maria Luisa to our first stop at the Plaza de Espana

The Plaza was created as the centrepiece of a joint international fair with America, which ultimately never happened due to the Wall St Crash in 1929.

The buildings fell into disrepair but have since been renovated to give an amazing outdoor space.

The whole crescent is decorated with painted tiles which represent all of the different regions of Spain.

Even relatively early in the day there was music and dance to enjoy from panpipes to flamenco.

After taking in the early morning atmosphere for a while we moved on towards the Alcazar via the Fountain of Hispalis.

Unfortunately this is the closest we got to getting into the palace today as the place was fully booked out.  However, over lunch we decided to extend our stay until Monday and booked ourselves a slot for tomorrow afternoon.

The Cathedral was also heavily booked up but we managed to bag ourselves an online slot for 3pm.

That gave us an opportunity to go for a bit of a wander to see a few more of the sights.  This is the Archbishop's Palace.

Entrance to the Cathedral Gardens.

We walked around some of backstreets of the old Barrio Santa Cruz Jewish Quarter.  This isn't entirely an optical illusion.  The buildings definitely leant towards one another higher up.

One of the back streets churches.  I was really impressed with how well kept Seville is.  Even the less well to do areas were almost always clean and free of the grafitti, which was everywhere in Portugal.

The Plaza de San Francisco.

On the other side of the Plaza are the Ayuntamiento municipal buildings

Avenue de la Constitucion.

I think a wedding may have been going on at this Church.  There was certainly lots of excited activity around the entrance.

More back street exploration.

We had a quick mooch around this arts and crafts Market.

Then after a very enjoyable tapas lunch we headed back to the Cathedral for our designated slot.  

First off, we climbed the Giralda Tower, which isn't quite as strenuous as it sounds.  Rather than taking steep steps you ascend via a succession of 35 ramps.  These are supposedly wide enough to allow 2 horses to pass one another but they must have been incredibly skinny animals to achieve such a feat.

The Cathedral is actually built on the site of an Islamic Mosque and the Tower was originally built in the late 12th Century as the Mosque's minaret.  When the Cathedral was built the tower was retained as a bell tower.  We arrived on the platform under the bells bang on the button of 3 O'clock, which was rather alarming.

There were fantastic views up there though across the Cathedral roof.

Also general panoramas of the Seville skyline.

Back down the ramps to the main body of the Cathedral.  Here's a few little factoids which I found interesting...

St Peters in Rome and St Paul's in London are always reckoned to be the biggest churches in the World but if you add height into the equation then by volume Seville supposedly trumps them both.

The wooden gothic retablo in the Capillo Mayor is all the lifetime's work of just one man.  It has 45 individual carved scenes from the life of Christ and is the largest altarpiece in the World.

This is the seriously over the top tomb of Christopher Columbus.  The explorer was originally buried in Havana but when Cuba gained independence in 1902. His remains were brought back to Seville.  There is some question as to the authenticity of who exactly it is who is buried here.  I guess you could say they are bones of contention.  

Sorry, I'll just shut up now and show you a few more pictures.

So on the way back to the bus stop we passed the bull ring.  I certainly don't condone what goes on here and have no intention of ever witnessing a bullfight but here it is.  

We moved swiftly on to the Torre del Oro.  This was built as a military watchtower to control river access to the city in the early 13th century.  

It was subsequently used as a prison.  Nowadays it is a museum of maritime history.

Ultimately I'm glad we didn't get to see the Alcazar today on top of everything which we did manage to cram in.  It really would have just been too much for one day.  We now have another day to really do this fabulous city a small amount of justice.

30 October 2022 - Seville part 2