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.
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| View into the Visitor's Courtyard |
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| I was fascinated by the many styles of arches seen from one room to the next |
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| 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 15th
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.
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| Giralda Tower next to the Cathedral |
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| 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.
