A day in Seville

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I'm falling behind on writing these posts because the days are so full that I'm too tired at night to write. So a quick summary of our day touring Seville, which is fine also cause I didn't love it. We had a half day walking tour set up to see the Royal Alcazar, a place/fortress built in 10th century by Moors and rebuilt by Peter 1 and later others. It's a copy of the Alhambra built by 5000 workers. The thought running through my head was why did anyone need all this? Then we walked through what was oncevthe Jewish Quarter, home to 5000 Jews in the 1300's but is now called Barrio Santa Cruz or Holy Cross ( not so subtle a change) and heard the story of Jews who lived there so the religious leaders could protect them but were killed in a pogrom because they weren't dying from the Bubonic plague and that was all before the Inquisition. There is not a synagogue in Seville now and the guide thought maybe 50 Jews live here. The guide was pretty matter of fact in her telling of the story. It bothered me alot. Then we went to the Cathedral...the largest gothic church in the world, built in 1192 as a mosque but changed to a church. It is incredibly ornate and even holds 20% of the remains of Christopher Columbus and 100% of his son. Now that's a claim to fame to be proud of. The guide seemed to go and on about minute details of the Cathedral and we all were cold and tired. It was a relief to get out of there and into the sunshine.
From there we walked to the Plaza de Toros...yes, bullfighting is still happening here, fortunately not this time of year but we heard about the history of this 'sport' and walked out into the ring itself.

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