The Cathedral With Multiple Personalities

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We had booked onto the 9.30am roof tour of the cathedral. Apparently, this is the third largest cathedral in the world. I later had a look and that is true, with it coming in behind St Peter’s Basilica in Rome (no surprises there) and one in Brazil somewhere. The largest British cathedral was a surprise, as it was Liverpool, coming in at number seven.

The cathedral was built in three different centuries and once it was pointed out, the difference is styles is obvious. The first part was built in the 12th century, but was actually originally a mosque. You can see the Islamic type architecture, albeit with various Christian artefacts added. The dominant part was built in the 15th century and is in the imposing Gothic style. Despite the scale, it only took 72 years to build. The last part was added in the 16th century and is in the much more elaborate Baroque style.

The roof tour was absolutely fantastic. Luckily the climb up was spread over several stages, although some of the steps were quite tight and narrow, We walked along different sections of the roof, whilst the guide explained how it was built, the reasons behind much of the elaborate detail in the stonework and some of the mechanics of the building. She described it as a ‘perfect machine’, referring mainly to the drainage systems.

A large part of the main dome had collapsed during an earthquake (I’m not sure when) and had needed to be rebuilt.

We finished back on the ground and went for a walk around the inside of the cathedral. The detail and the opulence was not in the league of St Peter’s (see An Audience With the Pope from 448 Feet), but impressive none-the-less. All-in-all the roof door was an excellent and somewhat different way to visit the cathedral.

Sadly, the cathedral bell tower, known as La Giralda was closed due to renovation (an the scaffolding had ruined some of my photos!) This was part of the original mosque and was originally red. All the red was removed when it was converted, as was the Muslin bronze sphere at the top, which was replaced with a Christian based weathervane.

Next, we had planned to visit the Alacazar Palace. Things were not looking good when we saw the queue, given our time was limited as we had a flight to catch. Luckily the Internet and our mobile phones came to the rescue and we were able to book some tickets for the 1.00pm entry.

We thought this was going to be quite a quick place to look round, but we were in for a surprise after walking around a few rooms and then going through an anonymous looking door to go outside. This opened up into this huge expanse of one garden after another. The gardens were absolutely stunning.

There was a maze, but given our worry about our flight, my wife quite rightly stopped me from going in there. The last thing we wanted was the stress of me being lost in a maze and unable to get out when we had a flight to catch. That said, the whole palace is a bit of a maze and we ended up getting quite stressed when it came to leaving. It took us 15 minutes to find the exit.

Apparently, as I was told afterwards, parts of Game of Thrones was filed in the Alacazar Palace.

It was a brisk walk back to the hotel to pick-up our bag and get a taxi to the airport. The taxi journey filled in some the gaps that couldn’t be covered by the bus tour, including a long section of the old city wall. The taxi driver was a lot more sedate than the one who drove us into Seville.

We got to the airport to find that our flight was an hour late, which was annoying, as that hour could have been put to good use in the palace and gardens or for some more authentic Tapas.

The check-in area of the airport was very dramatic, for want of a better word, but looked more like a train station than an airport.

BBC news flash - the Donald has arrived in the UK. We’re used to all the news about him when we’re in the states (see Preventing a Rebellion With Chocolate and Oreo Cookies), but now he’s the news even when we’re on holiday in Europe. The day the Queen has been dreading has arrived.

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Photos

Cathedral Roof
The Planet Naboo like Cathedral roof.

Real Alcazar
The gardens of the Real Alcazar palace.

Palace Baths
The baths under the Real Alcazar.

Seville Airport
Although we thought it was more like a train station.