June 14 - Cádiz and Sevilla

We arrived before sunrise at the port of Cádiz.  From the stern of our ship I could see the lighted cathedral with an almost full moon shining above it.  It was quite beautiful. We met early for our tour to Sevilla, the capital of Andalucia.  Our ride took us through  an agricultural plain.  Many of the fields were bright yellow from the blooming sunflowers planted in them. 

Our first stop in Sevilla took us on a short walk through the Murillo Park and briefly through the Jewish Quarter to the Reales Alcázares, the Royal Palaces, of Sevilla.  The building was first begun by the Moors who occupied Spain for several hundred years.  After the Reconquista by the Christians the building was added on to in what is known as the Mudejar style, a combination of Moorish and European architecture.  The palace is the oldest continuously used one in Europe since it is the home of the Spanish royal family when they are in Sevilla.

View into the Visitor's Courtyard

I was fascinated by the many styles of arches seen from one room to the next

The palace gardens

The palace reminded me of the Alhambra Palace in Granada.  The walls and arches are covered with delicate stuccowork which looks like filigree.  The rooms are arranged around lovely courtyards which always included pools and fountains.   The larger courtyard had orange trees planted around the pool at a height that people walking around the perimeter could reach out and pick an orange.  As we left the palace we walked through the extensive gardens.  The scents of jasmine and myrtle filled the air and the place was an oasis of tranquility despite being not far from a busy street.

Next door to the palace is the Cathedral of Sevilla with its most famous feature, the Giralda Tower.  The  site was originally a mosque and the Tower was its minaret.  Construction began in 1186.  After the reconquest by King Fernando III, it was decided that the Moorish building would be used as a Christian church and in 1248 work began.  The area around Sevilla is subject to earthquakes and large parts of the building were subsequently destroyed.  In 1401 the king decided to build the grandest cathedral in the world there and over the next hundred years the current building arose.  The minaret (the Giralda Tower) was incorporated into what still is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world.  In 1511, only five years after its completion, the central dome collapsed and work began again.  Over the centuries various earthquakes have caused damage but the structure remains essentially as it was envisioned back in the 15^th century.  It is the home of Christopher Columbus’ tomb.  There have been debates and disputes over the actual location of his burial place, but after a study conducted using DNA, it was determined that the remains in the cathedral are indeed his.  Columbus spent his last years in a dispute with Spain (in fact he was imprisoned for awhile); hence he didn't want to be buried in Spanish soil.  His son fought to have his father's name cleared and reputation restored. When his remains were finally brought to Spain and interred his sarcophagus was placed above ground suspended by four figures representing four regions of Spain as you can see in the picture below.

Giralda Tower next to the Cathedral

Columbus' Tomb

We were lucky because we got to see something really unusual during our visit.  At some time in the past during a Papal visit, children performed a Spanish dance in front of the main altar for the Pope.  One usually doesn’t see dancing in a church!  Today a group of school children were rehearsing to perform the same thing on the Feast of Corpus Christi.  A chorus of girls sang accompanied by an orchestra as the boys practiced their dance and played with castanets in front of the altar.  My picture is a little blurry since they were moving but I posted it anyway.

After lunch we made our final stop at the Plaza de España.  This is a magnificent complex of Spanish renaissance buildings which was Spain’s pavilion for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 held in Sevilla.  The ceramic tile work adorning the buildings and the square were beautiful and represented the provinces of Spain.  The buildings looked a little familiar because parts of them have been used in some films including Lawrence of Arabia and a Star Wars film.

After our brief stop (which was enough since by that time the temperature had climbed to around 114°), it was time to make the drive back to Cádiz.  Within just a few minutes of our return, the ship sailed for our next port in Malta.