Sunny Sevilla

When I say sunny I mean bloody hot! We were in Sevilla for four nights and daytime temps were mid to high thirties every day. Somewhat energy sapping for site seeing but several attractions here were inside so not too bad.

Our priority in Sevilla was the Alcázar. The Alcázar is a palace with Moorish origins which has been added to by several monarchs in its long history. Today, the upper levels are still used by the Spanish Royal family when visiting Sevilla.

 

 

 

We spent about three hours wandering around here and subsequently lost Sam.

 

 

 

Russell and I actually thought it more impressive than the Alhambra in Granada – the colors of the tiling are much less faded and simply stunning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were the underground baths of Lady Maria de Padilla, mistress of Peter the Cruel who was apparently only cruel in the eyes of the nobility but much loved by ‘the people,’ especially Lady Maria it seems.

 

 

 

Eventually we dragged ourselves away and grabbed a quick bite of lunch in the shadow of our next priority, the Cathedral.

 

As I am a recently self proclaimed Cathedral expert (!) I am able to tell you that this is the third largest cathedral in the world, behind the Vatican and St. Paul’s in London, but it is THE largest gothic cathedral and was completed in the 16th century. It was built on the site of an old Muslim mosque to proclaim the city’s wealth.

As we bought the tickets we noticed a sign saying that today it closed at 4pm and given that it was already 3, we didn’t really have time to amble.

 

It was of course stunning, but after having seen the Sagrada Familia, everything falls short for me!

 

 

 

We wanted to climb the famed Giralda Tower, a minaret converted into a tower some 105 meters high with a square base of 13.61 metres and as we started up we ran into Sam coming down.

 

 

One of the curiosities of the tower is that rather than climbing stairs, you climb 37 ramps around and around and around.

It was apparently originally designed so that the Muslims could ride their horse to the top to call the faithful to prayer and was built to be wide enough for two horses abreast.

 

 

 

It is said that King Ferdinand III rode his horse to the top to survey the city he had captured – I don’t know how those horses didn’t get dizzy!

There is also the tomb of Christopher Columbus here ( we seem to have missed that somehow) and there has long been dispute over whether it actually contains his remains or not – the Dominican Republic also claims to have him.

However, in 2006 DNA testing confirmed a match with the DNA of Columbus’ brother, known to buried in Sevilla. The Dominican Republic do not accept this but won’t allow testing of their remains.

After closing time we decided to use the environmentally friendly alternative to the hop on hop off bus – the horse and carriage – to see some of Sevilla’s other attraction. The city is absolutely full of these carriages and for 50 euro the three of us sat back for a 40 minute ride.

 

The horses were in good condition and immacutely turned out and well behaved, waiting for clients with no form of tethering at all.

This is Carina, our willing mare.

 

Exhausted, but having made a serious dent in our ‘must see’ list we headed back to the apartment to recover and plan day two.

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