We’re on our way, to Madrid and happiness today. Dammit, I’m one syllable too short. We’ve just left Seville and I’m a little sad. Not only was it a fantastic city, but it also means our Spanish adventure is almost at its end. It means the end of a language we’ve been speaking for four months, and I still haven’t found me a sexy Spanish husband. Curses. Doesn’t help that Andrew has surreptitiously fed me garlic at any given opportunity. You THINK I don’t know what you’re doing, but I see your thwarting attempts. Stupid Andrew.
Anyway….Seville. It would be one of my favourite places in Spain, and I can’t really put why finger on why. It might be the beautiful cathedral and adjacent Alcazar, the fabric-covered peatonal streets, the gorgeous architecture floating around every corner, the walkability of it all…..as I said, I’m not sure.
Our first exploration was of the cathedral and the facing Alcazar, which took up a good two to three hours. The cathedral is one of the largest in the world, its gothic architecture stunning on the inside and out. I went a little overboard with the camera, but I just couldn’t help it. The beautiful spiralling columns, the stereotypical patterns on the inside of the roof and its massive organ in the centre. Inside the cathedral is also the remains of Christopher Columbus (only recently confirmed), though there is some speculation that some of his remains are somewhere in the Caribbean. We wandered through looking at (and generally getting bored by) a plethora of Jesus and other religious figures paintings – sorry to those art-inclined, but there is only so many paintings of the crucifixion I can cope with per day. I have exceeded my lot for a year, and I haven’t even hit Rome yet. Sigh of infinite sighs. Doesn’t quite work with the sighing, but you get my point.
We also went up to the top of the cathedral, the Giralda, to look out over the entire cathedral. To get up there you need to walk up a series of 35-ish ramps working their way around the tower. Most people are relieved that they aren’t staircases, but I couldn’t get over the fact that they were designed as ramps so that they could ride horses up there. I’m not exactly sure why they’d want horses up there in the not exactly spacious top, but who am I to speculate on what they did however many hundreds of years ago? Well, I’m Mel and I can’t decide whether they were lazy, had special tea-parties where everybody had to bring their horse along, used the horses to surprises unsuspecting passerbys with presents from above, wanted to look and feel important….the possibilities are endless.
Anyway, we got up to the top of the cathedral to look out over Seville below – it was beautiful. The town in the background, the old gothic architecture of the cathedral in the foreground – it would have been quite serene if it wasn’t for the overabundance of people that prevented you from being able to get a clear look over the balcony without waiting for five minutes.
On the way down (and surprisingly, up as well) there were windows placed on one of the sides of the tower where you could at the cathedral in progressive levels of descent/ascent, which was nice to have a few different perspectives on it.
Upon emerging out of the cathedral, we found ourselves in a pleasant courtyard full of orange trees, which we were to discover are EVERYWHERE in Seville. As we were walking out we saw a tower that looked like it had been plucked out of Morocco (the Giralda). We then remembered that there used to be a number of mosques here before they were ‘converted’ to Catholicism, although much of their former glory and architecture remains. A little bizarre for the Spaniards – I would have expected them to tear them down and build churches in their stead, but instead they just added a few Catholic touches and pretended it was some kind of groovy new architecture. Nah, nah, we SWEAR it wasn’t a mosque.
On those lines, the next stop was the Alcazar, which was stunning, though if I hadn’t just been to Morocco I think I would have been absolutely captivated with it. Inside was just like being in some of the palaces in Morocco – the curved arches and colourful intricate patterns and carvings lining the roof and the walls, the very busy tiles everywhere…a beautiful, beautiful place. I was pretty hard on my camera that day.
The Alcazar also comes with its own gardens, which were certainly royal gardens in their time. Stretches of lawn and trees dotted with ponds and fountains, complete with a maze that Andrew just had to get us lost in.
After all that we went wandering around for Seville; looking at plazas, walking along the river, enjoying the non-oppressive heat. Had dinner at a great Italian restaurant and had a great vegetarian pasta, which made two great meals in Seville (the night before we had dinner at a gorgeous little restaurant that although was near impossible to find, served up awesome vegetarian dishes, including one with wild mushrooms and rice. YUM!).
The next day we didn’t start exploring until quite late – spent too damn long on the internet! After checking the schedule for the bus to Madrid, we went in search of two buildings we saw on our way in from Tarifa. They had been facing each other and had very different but equally exquisite architecture. I desperately wanted to find them and though that they might be two buildings facing each other on the map we had. Unfortunately, they weren’t. The two buildings were nice enough, situated in a nice park with plenty of white doves and a pretty rainbow to boot. Mind you, the rainbow may have been the result of the wonderful thunderstorm that we had just had and had to wait in a bus shelter for about 20 minutes because of the pouring fat rain. It was awesome. Andrew was a big girl and ran to the bus shelter because he couldn’t face the possibility of getting wet, then ridiculed another guy for running to catch a bus.
On the subject of weather (which I know is a great conversation topic at the best of times), it was awesome in Seville. Hot and dry throughout the day, then in the evening we experienced cool changes and the smell of impending rain. However, only on our last night in Seville did we actually get any. I’m not sure if we just happened upon a particular weather pattern when we were there, or whether Seville always does that, but it was fantastic having the cool breeze come in and bring that beautiful wet dust smell and a ten degree drop.
So we are now on a bus to Madrid, and I still have 2 hours to kill and my laptop battery is nearly dead, as is my ipod battery. Ah well, at least it’s air conditioned, and I have a view of one of the beautifully majestic wind farms that Spain has. I have no idea how people find these elegant things ugly – they turn slowly in the wind, rhythmically and regal, their quiet hum (sorry, I mean loud racket) not audible in the bus but you just feel like you can feel it, adding to a sense of serenity as you drive through. I just want to grab a bike and ride through, I find them so peaceful. Anyway, only another 2 nights until we fly out, so I better get cracking in terms of finding me a Spanish husband!! If only I can figure out what to do with my SP….
Seville photos
