Seville, Spain
This morning, we piled in the bus and trekked to Sevilla. Seville has a population of 700,000, with another million if you count the suburbs. The only larger cities are Madrid and Barcelona. Out of Seville’s 700,000 city inhabitants: 50,000 are college students.
Two Roman emporers were born here in Seville. Amerigo Vespucci also lived here, as did Magellan.
The walls around the city were built by the Arabs, and the gate is called the Macarena. (And you thought it was just a song!) One week every spring, Seville has a flemenco festival.
Cartuja is the new section, with an island and bridges. There’s an amusement park open from 11 am until midnight. It has a section that’s a copy of the Seville harbor during the 16th century.
Valenque is a tent-covered square that actually has air conditioning. Concerts and the like are held here.
A mudéjar style Cathusian monestary here was converted into a ceramic factory by an Englishman. It has since been reconverted back into a church. St James is the patron saint of Spain and his festival is next week.
Seville has the famous bridge you may have read about in the Guinness book of world records. It’s long, flat, and with zero suspension. Oh yeah, and it’s not just foot traffic, either – our bus rolled right across it, and I amazingly lived to tell the tale.
The new bridge in Seville has a funny history. The bridge came first, and the water came second! Once the construction finished, they released the dams and put the river underneath the bridge.
I also saw the cacharro – a statue of Jesus on the cross. The sculptor witnessed a gypsy getting caught and killed on the street and captured the gypsy’s expression for the one on the face of christ.
The Plaza de Toros in Seville is one of the oldest in Spain. (But not *the* oldest – do you remember where that one was?) It is the bullring featured in the opera Carmen.
Seville also has two towers – the tower of silver and the tower of gold. Also, you may have seen the square on film – Lawrence of Arabia was filmed here, as were parts of Star Wars Episode II.
Seville has a monument dedicated to El Cid Campeador in front of the university, magnolia trees with big whilte flowers, and five remaining arches of a Roman aqueduct.
Kansas City, Missouri is the the sister city to Seville, and the name of the avenue to enter Seville for the airport. (That bit of info is for you Missourians, you know who you are.)
The Holy Cross square used to be a synangogue that (of course) was converted into a Catholic church. But then it caught fire and was destroyed and now a monument stands in its place.
Seville also boasts the largest gothic cathedral in the world. It has the mummified “el lagarto” (which is like a crocodile, but more about the size of a large iguana.) Interestingly, “el lagarto” sounds suspiciously like “alligator”. (Things that make you go hmmm…)
The tomb of Cristobal Colón (Christopher Columbus to us) is also in this cathedral. Next year marks the 500th year of his death. He died in Spain and his remains were in the church that became the old ceramic factory that later re-became a church. (You followed that, right?) When his son died in Seville, his widow took the remains of both father and son to the island of Santo Domingo. 200 years ago, Spain lost this island and moved the remains to Cuba for safe keeping. This turned out to be a bad plan, and in 1898, the remains (in terrible condition by this time) were brought back to Spain. Seville recently decided to DNA test everything that was left, so actually, Columbus is in a laboratory somewhere in Houston right now.
In this cathedral, there were lots of glass cases featuring the bones and other visible remains of various saints. As mentioned recently, this is the first time I ever knew people kept this sort of thing in churches for general viewing, and I am getting used to the idea, since in old European Catholic churches, it seems to be the norm. I also learned that the Catholics like to pray to the saints when they can see part of them. I’m guessing this is to feel a connection with the person. (If you’re Catholic and you have some insight on this, please confirm or deny).
This Church has a huge baptism chapel, which is still in use. Just two days ago, some kids were baptised. The walls are adorned with paintings by Murillo. On one, someone cut out the saint and stole it. This was back in the 19th century. years later, someone came across it in the black market. (What they were doing perusing the black market and how they recognized a piece of this random painting, hard to say.) So, it found its way back to Spain. I can clearly see the marks where a big rectangle was cut apart and put back together.
I also climbed 35 floors to the top of the Giralda tower, which has a magnificent view. Afterwards, I ate some ice cream at Rayas, which was delish. Europe not only has a sweet tooth, but very specifically has tons of ice cream.
Tonight we went to a (choreographed) flamenco show, and although it was well-executed and entertaining, I enjoyed the gypsy flamenco much better. Also, the theater we were at tonight had us sitting thigh-to-thigh with the person next to us. People were smoking and ordering drinks, even during the performance. (The girl to my right got a vodka and fanta. Ew.)
I won’t name any names since this is the Internet and all, but there was one girl on the trip who cracked me up continuously because she was always saying the zaniest things. First of all, she said she disliked Spanish cuisine because there weren’t any twizzlers, and she likes to eat a pound a week. (???) She was going to pack five pounds of twizzlers in her carry-on, but she knew she’d eat them all the first week she was here. (!!!) Also, when I asked her if she knew what we were doing tomorrow, she said “Yep – we’re going to see Dante’s windmills.” I blinked, and when I realized what she meant, I cracked up laughing until I got the hiccups (which didn’t faze her in the least, so she must get that a lot.) “Actually,” I mention casually when I finally catch my breath. “I believe Dante is known more for his Inferno. Maybe we’re going to see Don Quixote’s windmills.” (To which she said, “Whatever. All I really want to do is go to the movies, because I’m a big fan of the Fabulous Four.”)
