After a night train from Lisbon back to Madrid and a hop south via an AVE high speed train, we were on the orange tree lined streets of Seville. Yes, that is an orange tree right behind me…
The city’s towering and lavishly decorated cathedral was built on the site of Muslim Seville’s main mosque between 1401 and 1507. Our guide book told us the cathedral was open and free to the public daily between 3:00pm and 6:00pm (for some reason they charge an entrance fee from 1:30pm to 3:00pm). We headed over to the cathedral area around 3:30pm and were very disappointed to find a sign telling us it was closed. Here Rich poses with the locked gate…
Since our main goal was to see the cathedral that day and we were denied, we decide to instead venture into a neighborhood called the Barrio de Santa Cruz. We were told the best way to appreciate this old Jewish quarter was to head for the tangle of narrow streets and plazas and just get lost. So lost we got!
Here is Rich in one of the quaint plazas…
This beautiful wrought iron cross stood in the very center of the Plaza del Santa Cruz…
At about 4:50pm, the bells of the cathedral began to ring. The sound echoed through every street, alley, and plaza around. They rang and they rang. It was absolutely beautiful! At about the same time, Rich and I noticed that a lot of people seemed to be heading in the direction of the cathedral and so we decided to follow along…
Much to our delight, the cathedral doors were open, and they were allowing everyone to enter. There was a service going on with gorgeous music, and we wandered around soaking in the sights and the sounds around us. Seville’s cathedral is the largest in the world (they proudly display their Guinness Book of World Records Certificate by the entrance). I cannot recall the exact dimensions, but they incorporate length, width AND height for total cubic meters.
After the service they again rang the cathedral bells, and we stood below watching the bells swing in their tower...
Monday, June 11 – Day 14 (Seville)
We took a leisurely morning with coffee and toast before we hit the streets today. While we were fortunate to see the cathedral yesterday, our planning was a bit off and the other main site in Seville, the Alcázar is closed on Mondays. This fortress, a Moorish fortification, was built on Roman foundations and dates back to 1248.
Instead of this historic site, we decided to take a stroll through some more modern parts of the city – through the Parque de Maria Luisa and along the River Guadalquivir. Our first encounter was with the magnificent Plaza de España…
This semi-circular square was designed by Aníbal González for Seville's 1929 Ibero-American Expo. The dazzling water fountain and semicircle of red brick buildings clad in azulejo (glazed ceramic tile) depictions of historical scenes from every province in Spain is breathtaking…
A canal runs around the perimeter of the square, but for some reason it was empty during our visit.
Next up was the Torre del Oro (The Golden Tower) which was built in the 13th century to control shipping along the River Guadalquivir. There are two legends that attempt to explain why it’s called Torre del Oro. One says that the gold from the New World was stored here in the 16th and 17th centuries. The other says that it was originally covered in golden tiles…
Finally, we reached Seville’s famous bullring the Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza - one of the oldest in Spain...
No comments:
Post a Comment