Seville is a city of plazas….small squares full of orange trees with the bitter Seville oranges falling to the ground all over. No good picking them in a desperate search for vitamin C in this land shy of vegetables. They are too bitter.
I climbed the old Moslem minaret which is now the bell tower to the Seville Cathedral. Vistas of whites buildings with the bull ring built in the 1700s showing through. The Islamic influence is not so obvious here.
The busy baroque Cathedral proudly displays a certificate from the Guinness Record people saying it is the biggest in the world; it might reluctantly admit that St Peter’s and St. Paul’s are grander if the ceiling heights are included in scale. The Della Robbia’s are an elegant respite in so much gilt.
Gilt Gilt everywhere gilt!! This lot is in the Cathedral
Ah! Catholic Spain! It might be fading but it still has some class acts. In the nearby OTT baroque church you get into for the same ticket, a bone of St Barbara is on display and yet another fragment of the true Cross. That was a bloody big Cross He had to bear given the number of fragments in existence.
A vibrant town
African photograpers on display!!
Seville is deceptively fascinating. There’s the art show in the street, the buskers, the tram running past the Cathedral with the gentry spilling in front of it waiting to go to a formal wedding, the estates with their skaters’ ramps down by the river, street art and a bustling city centre. There’s even a man feeding pigeons in the park where the executions were held during the Inquisition.
Finally a genuine local tapas bar…Morales…huge pottery wine barrels, a local clientele, dry white and anchovies on fresh cheese worth the trip to Seville. Even better, a thunderstorm breaks the heat and my sinus seems to improve. We’re checking the pedometer, about 17000 steps today albeit slowly in the heat. A tick for the heart foundation.
Even a rollerskating gnome has to rest
Carmen came from here so what is more natural than a re-enactment in the park?
A Game Old Dame 