Of all the Spanish towns and cities we have been to so far, Seville, is the most beautiful. It has wide avenues boarded by tall trees and magnificent buildings. Everything is clean and freshly painted. The city really sparkles. It has the most beautiful squares and parks and buildings everywhere you look.
The bottom left picture above is of the bull ring. It is the second largest in Spain. We didn't tour it.
As usual there was much to see and do there. I already posted the fabulous flamenco show we went to but there was also an immense cathedral there (of course, isn't there always?) There are on-going arguments as to whether is it is larger than St. Peter's in Rome.
The interior was massive and impressive but kind of ghastly. Very baroque. Check out the altar in the bottom right picture below. The ceilings were amazing - some were even pretty. The bottom left picture is of the mirror which allows you study the ceiling without craning your neck. Interesting approach.
See the bottom left picture below take in the treasury room. Pretty much all cathedrals in Europe have tremendously rich treasurys containing elaborate art pieces used in services and parades. There is a lot of wealth stored here.
The one really amazing things that is there is the tomb of Christopher Columbus. It was so cool to see that. It looked like it needed some major dusting. His son is also buried in the church (who knew he even had a son?)
The other really fun part of the cathedral was the tower attached to it, which was actually much older than the church having been built by the Moors as part of the masque. The Catholics destroyed the masque to build the cathedral but they kept the tower. Smart! Instead of stairs inside it had ramps which went around and around for 34 floors. They used a ramp so that they could charge up there on their horses! (We had to go on foot.)
The views from the top were wonderful.
We took a lack luster tourist bus around the city but frankly we had seen more by car driving in and walking. Later in the day Larry took the boat ride on the river which he really enjoyed.
The bridges were wonderful (top right one was designed by Eiffel, of tower fame.) The most interesting thing(see bottom left picture above) was the control tower (like you would have at an airport) that sits in the middle of the river where it bends. At it's heyday Seville was a major port despite being inland from the ocean by quite a bit. The river was quite navigable and they needed the tower to control boat traffic.
After Columbus discovered America, Seville thrived, as it was designated by the spanish monarch as the sole trade city with the new world. The town really flourished during the 1500s as a result and much of what you see there today was built during that timeframe. The trade building next to the cathedral (built so that the business people would stop doing thier business on the steps of the cathedral) now holds a world-class archive of documents related to Spanish involvement with the new world. They apparently undertook the effort to collect a proper view of the history of Spanish involvement sort of as a propaganda campaign when they were getting a bad name for how they were managing their colonies. What a treasurer trove of maps.
Next to the cathedral is the Real Alcazar, the royal palace which is actually still in use today by the royal family when they come to Seville. It was a very interesting mixture of styles, much of it very Moorish reminiscent of the Alhambra in Granada.
However, in this case, it has been restored much better including the painting of the various wall pieces, so it was possible to really get an idea of what it looked like.
My favorite item in the whole place was a tapestry which took up an entire wall and depicted a map of the Mediterranean Sea. It was unclear what the date was on it but it clearly labelled many cities in Spain and France and the islands in the sea. Out in the Atlantic there were sea-monster depicted. It was really fascinating.
And then it was off to Cordoba.
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