Seville

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Seville (sev-e-a - as the locals say it)
Hey everyone, I’ve finally caught up on the blogs and we are now in Seville and heading out to Granada tomorrow morning. Seville is a lovely city and we are back to overcast weather and rain in the afternoons.

We had a 7 ½ hour bus trip from Lisbon arriving late afternoon so our first day was just to orientate ourselves with a walking tour and head back for a rest for the evening. There are a lot of parks and water features in them here and it is a fairly pretty city. It isn’t as spotlessly clean as it’s northern cousins and that in itself is a refreshing as the place looks lived in. Seville is the place to see Bull Fighting (no thanks), Flamenco Dancing, 3rd largest Cathedral in Europe and finally the Plaza de Espana (where they filmed for Star Wars, Phantom Menace, the Royal Planet of Nabo) and many, many more plaza’s, monuments, old churches, museums and you’d need at least a week to do them all at a hectic pace.

Plaza de Espana, built a Spanish/American Exhibition in 1929 it has a mixture of architecture which I suppose is to take in and reflect the history of Spain and usually has “moat” of water around it but as per the norm for this trip, it was drained for renovations. The Plaza is built in a massive semi circle with a big fountain in the middle and two huge towers on edges. Sitting in the shade looking around is a great way to waste a few hours looking around.

The Flamenco dancing was next to be ticked off the list of things to do. It is very impressive to watch the way they move their feet so fast and consistently and not lose track of the beat or trip over themselves. There is now way I could do this dance and I don’t think my attention span could cope with the required concentration and seriousness of the dance for too long. Was a good night and am glad went to see it.

Finally the last day in Seville was spent having coffee in the morning and going thru the Cathedral in the afternoon. There is a lot of old artwork hung on the walls and there is the tomb of Christopher Columbus here as well (so we are lead to believe anyway). Unfortunately in the dull lighting my photos didn’t come out that well but the amount of fine detail that is everywhere you turn inside is phenomenal.
Originally a mosque that was transformed into a Gothic style Cathedral early 1400’s and took 100 years or so to complete. There are some awesome Gargoyles and the exterior of the building is just and intricate with stone work as the interior, it’s just all very cool to look at. Converted from the original Mosques minaret the Bell tower has a commanding view over the city and worth the climb up for a look. Along the way up there are pieces on display showing the doors of the original mosque and old bells etc.

Anyway that’s it from Seville, as you can guess we didn’t exhaust ourselves with sights here and besides, we are off to Granada tomorrow and the Alhambra awaits us.

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