Fortified after our lunch, we next tackled the Seville Cathedral (http://www.andalucia.com/cities/seville/cathedral.htm) – our allotted 90 minutes was not nearly long enough! The Cathedral is the third largest church in the world, behind only St. Peters (Vatican) and St. Pauls (London). It is built on top of a Moorish mosque to commemorate the end of the Reconquest (http://explorethemed.com/reconquista.asp). The forces of Ferdinand and Isabella finally conquered the last Islamic Kingdom of Granada in 1492, ending 700 years of Islamic rule in Spain. In the same year Ferdinand and Isabella signed the Alhambra Decree, which required all Jews to convert to Christianity or face expulsion from Spain. In subsequent years, the Muslim minorities would face the same fate. Later that same year (1492), Ferdinand and Isabella commissioned Christopher Columbus (in Spain he's known as Cristóbal Colón) to sail across the Atlantic. From this point on the Christians of Spain would continue their expansion and conquests, but this time westwards, in the New World.
The Cathedral was built on the same large, rectangular base-plan of the mosque it replaced, but the Christian architects added the extra dimension of height. Two parts of the mosque were thankfully preserved in the cathedral: the Moorish entrance court (Patio de los Naranjos); and the Giralda, originally a minaret, converted into a bell tower. The total area covers 11,520 square meters (approximately 124,000 square feet!). The central nave (the longest in Spain) rises to 42 meters (nearly 140 feet) and some of the side chapels seem large enough to contain an ordinary church. The impressively arched ceiling and high walls showcase exquisite tile and stained glass wherever you look. The Main Chapel alone took 80 years to complete – you can understand since it has 4 rows of 8 panels with intricate gilded scenes. The Treasury, which houses just a fraction of the golden artworks from the New World, is protected by Saints Justa and Rufina. According to myth, the sisters kept the Giralda from collapsing during the mammoth 1755 earthquake that destroyed Lisbon (http://sevilleconcierge.com/2013/03/24/justina-and-rufina-two-very-sevillana-saints/). We’ll let the photos do most of the telling as it’s difficult to describe just how grand this building is. We climbed the Giralda – 70m tall bell chamber with 34 ramps – and were rewarded with superb views of the city.
