Sights and Streets of Seville
So after about 24 hours of traveling (SFO to NYC to Barcelona to Seville), I arrived in Seville, Spain with about 20 of my rugby teammates for our traditional bi-yearly international tour - last time we went to Fiji and Australia. We're not actually playing any rugby this time, though, just touristing about.
Our first stop on tour, Seville, is in Andalucía, the most southwestern province in Spain. Andalucía is reknowned for its rugged outdoors, its Islamic influence and architecture, and perhaps most importantly, its tapas culture.
One of the first things we learned on arrival is that Seville is a maze of narrow and winding cobblestone streets. As far as I can tell, there are really only two or three streets that go for more than a couple of blocks with the same name. So anytime we wanted to get anywhere, we basically just walked in the general direction of our destination, choosing which way to detour whenever the street dead-ended into a building (which was often). Somehow cars still manage to get through, however. Once we even witnessed a large cargo truck (for a bottled water company), squeeze through a narrow alley that a Mini-Cooper-sized car had just had trouble navigating.
[Crowded streets of Seville, as viewed from the top of the Cathedral]
On our first day of sightseeing after a good night's sleep, we saw the big two touristy spots in Seville: the Cathedral and the Alcazar. We walked there through the above-mentioned street maze, but my teammate Carey proved to be an excellent navigator. For the rest of the tour, I spent most of my days as a group of three with Carey and Katy, and we managed to find our way around pretty well most of the time.
The Cathedral was impressive inside and out. The Giralda (the minaret of the mosque that used to occupy the site) towered over the mostly Gothic cathedral. There was also some Rennaisance-style architecture added to the dome later on for good measure. Apparently this combination was pretty common as Andalucía changed hands over the years: after the Romans and the Visigoths, the province became the central command of the Islamic Al-Andalus kingdom in Spain from the 7th century until 1492, when the Christians finished up their Reconquista under Isabel and Ferdinand. Another cool thing about it was that inside, in addition to all of the chapels and gilded altars and all of that, there was the tomb of Christopher Columbus. Apparently DNA evidence just recently proved that it really was him, although DNA evidence from another supposed Columbus skeleton in Latin America could also be him. Who knows.
[1-Cathedral & Giralda, 2-Christopher Columbus' tomb,
3 & 4- Two of the many gilded statues in the Cathedral (Virgen del Reposo & San Fernando)]
Across the plaza from the Cathedral was the Alcazar, a huge palace and garden complex that started out as a fort in the 900´s and was repeatedly fancied up over the years. Pedro I (a Christian King in the 14th century) was the one behind most of the embellishments, creating the huge Palacio Mudejar de Don Pedro. Mudejar refers to the Muslims living under Christian rule. Although Pedro was a Christian king during the Reconquista, apparently he was buddies with the Muslim emir Mohammed V of Granada, who sent over some of his best artesans to work on the palace, which ended up with some very Islamic architectural design. It has a lot of really, really elaborate carvings and stonework, mostly in the geometric and abstract floral patterns that are apparently the top Islamic decorative motifs (according to the guidebook, anyway). The level of detail was really amazing, as was the fact that some of the colored paint had survived intact.
[The Palacio Mudejar de Don Pedro]
Outside was the garden complex, added by later rulers. The complex was huge, with lots of greenery, walkways, and fountains. We didn't make it through the whole thing, but we did get a chance to hang out for a bit in a little alcove and feed some ducks in a pond.
[The gardens of the Alcazar]
The plan was to spend a week in Seville, before heading on for the second and last week of tour in Barcelona. We ended up taking a lot of short trips, so we only spent about half the time actually in Seville. Of that time, we spent a lot of it sleeping into the afternoon. The day-to-day shedule was very different from what we were used to: almost everyone stayed up late into the night, got up the next morning for a couple of hours, and then crashed during siesta from 1 or 2pm until 5 or 6pm. It was really amazing how late everyone stayed out: I think I saw toddlers that were out and about until 1 or 2am, and grandmas until 3 or 4am. Bars didn't really open until midnight, and clubs didn't really get going until after 3am. We couldn't really quite keep up, so we stayed out as late as we could and then crashed until the afternoon.
The combination of the nightlife culture in Seville and the rugby team made for some pretty good stories. One time we ended up at a bar along the river that was being dominated by foreigners and non-danceable music. However, there were these three Spanish guys at the back of the room in pantaloons and what looked suspiciously like minstrel outfits (European court minstrel, not the other kind...). Of course one of my teammates goes up to them and in broken Spanish lets them know she is a big fan of their pants. She then gets into a singing contest with the baritone of the group, they start pouring us all some sort of prune alcohol from their leather canteen, and pretty soon they've broken out their instruments and are playing Gipsy Kings music in the back of the bar.
Unfortunately all of that staying out late meant that by the time we got up it was siesta and everything was closed. That did help us get a lot of down time to just wander around and sit in parks, though. A good example of this was one of the days later in the week, after we'd been out of town a couple of days for short trips. We went out with the whole team the night before, got up late, attempted to go look at some ceramics stores, and found that 95% of them were closed for siesta. The ceramics stores were on the other side of the river that runs through town, and we had seen some people in pedal-boats on the way over. So we walked down the river until we found the place renting pedal-boats, and took one out for a spin. The river was pretty polluted, but it was a fun little trip and along the way we bumped into some guys out partying on a motor boat who pulled up and gave us a couple of beers. All in all a great afternoon.
[Out on the pedal boat]
We capped off that day with a flamenco show in a small enclosed courtyard with vines running up the back wall and birds contributing to the music. There were three musicians and one dancer; it wasn't a super huge production but I liked it better that way. We got there late, and the remaining choice of seats had us at the center at the back, so we had to stand up to be able to see what the dancer was doing with his feet. The dancer was not shy, and when he was running his hands all over his torso and doing his sexy eyes thing towards the back, we just happened to be right in his line of vision. That was a little awkward (for us anyways), but I really respect the guts and confidence it takes to get up in front of people and basically perform a dance that is a giant metaphor for sex while staying in character so well. I don't think I could ever do it though, I'd just crack up.
That was our last night in town, and it capped off a great week of tapas, learning about local architecture and history, cobblestone streets, parks, and nightlife. Up to top
Our first stop on tour, Seville, is in Andalucía, the most southwestern province in Spain. Andalucía is reknowned for its rugged outdoors, its Islamic influence and architecture, and perhaps most importantly, its tapas culture.
One of the first things we learned on arrival is that Seville is a maze of narrow and winding cobblestone streets. As far as I can tell, there are really only two or three streets that go for more than a couple of blocks with the same name. So anytime we wanted to get anywhere, we basically just walked in the general direction of our destination, choosing which way to detour whenever the street dead-ended into a building (which was often). Somehow cars still manage to get through, however. Once we even witnessed a large cargo truck (for a bottled water company), squeeze through a narrow alley that a Mini-Cooper-sized car had just had trouble navigating.
[Crowded streets of Seville, as viewed from the top of the Cathedral]
On our first day of sightseeing after a good night's sleep, we saw the big two touristy spots in Seville: the Cathedral and the Alcazar. We walked there through the above-mentioned street maze, but my teammate Carey proved to be an excellent navigator. For the rest of the tour, I spent most of my days as a group of three with Carey and Katy, and we managed to find our way around pretty well most of the time.
The Cathedral was impressive inside and out. The Giralda (the minaret of the mosque that used to occupy the site) towered over the mostly Gothic cathedral. There was also some Rennaisance-style architecture added to the dome later on for good measure. Apparently this combination was pretty common as Andalucía changed hands over the years: after the Romans and the Visigoths, the province became the central command of the Islamic Al-Andalus kingdom in Spain from the 7th century until 1492, when the Christians finished up their Reconquista under Isabel and Ferdinand. Another cool thing about it was that inside, in addition to all of the chapels and gilded altars and all of that, there was the tomb of Christopher Columbus. Apparently DNA evidence just recently proved that it really was him, although DNA evidence from another supposed Columbus skeleton in Latin America could also be him. Who knows.
[1-Cathedral & Giralda, 2-Christopher Columbus' tomb,
3 & 4- Two of the many gilded statues in the Cathedral (Virgen del Reposo & San Fernando)]
Across the plaza from the Cathedral was the Alcazar, a huge palace and garden complex that started out as a fort in the 900´s and was repeatedly fancied up over the years. Pedro I (a Christian King in the 14th century) was the one behind most of the embellishments, creating the huge Palacio Mudejar de Don Pedro. Mudejar refers to the Muslims living under Christian rule. Although Pedro was a Christian king during the Reconquista, apparently he was buddies with the Muslim emir Mohammed V of Granada, who sent over some of his best artesans to work on the palace, which ended up with some very Islamic architectural design. It has a lot of really, really elaborate carvings and stonework, mostly in the geometric and abstract floral patterns that are apparently the top Islamic decorative motifs (according to the guidebook, anyway). The level of detail was really amazing, as was the fact that some of the colored paint had survived intact.
[The Palacio Mudejar de Don Pedro]
Outside was the garden complex, added by later rulers. The complex was huge, with lots of greenery, walkways, and fountains. We didn't make it through the whole thing, but we did get a chance to hang out for a bit in a little alcove and feed some ducks in a pond.
[The gardens of the Alcazar]
The plan was to spend a week in Seville, before heading on for the second and last week of tour in Barcelona. We ended up taking a lot of short trips, so we only spent about half the time actually in Seville. Of that time, we spent a lot of it sleeping into the afternoon. The day-to-day shedule was very different from what we were used to: almost everyone stayed up late into the night, got up the next morning for a couple of hours, and then crashed during siesta from 1 or 2pm until 5 or 6pm. It was really amazing how late everyone stayed out: I think I saw toddlers that were out and about until 1 or 2am, and grandmas until 3 or 4am. Bars didn't really open until midnight, and clubs didn't really get going until after 3am. We couldn't really quite keep up, so we stayed out as late as we could and then crashed until the afternoon.
The combination of the nightlife culture in Seville and the rugby team made for some pretty good stories. One time we ended up at a bar along the river that was being dominated by foreigners and non-danceable music. However, there were these three Spanish guys at the back of the room in pantaloons and what looked suspiciously like minstrel outfits (European court minstrel, not the other kind...). Of course one of my teammates goes up to them and in broken Spanish lets them know she is a big fan of their pants. She then gets into a singing contest with the baritone of the group, they start pouring us all some sort of prune alcohol from their leather canteen, and pretty soon they've broken out their instruments and are playing Gipsy Kings music in the back of the bar.
Unfortunately all of that staying out late meant that by the time we got up it was siesta and everything was closed. That did help us get a lot of down time to just wander around and sit in parks, though. A good example of this was one of the days later in the week, after we'd been out of town a couple of days for short trips. We went out with the whole team the night before, got up late, attempted to go look at some ceramics stores, and found that 95% of them were closed for siesta. The ceramics stores were on the other side of the river that runs through town, and we had seen some people in pedal-boats on the way over. So we walked down the river until we found the place renting pedal-boats, and took one out for a spin. The river was pretty polluted, but it was a fun little trip and along the way we bumped into some guys out partying on a motor boat who pulled up and gave us a couple of beers. All in all a great afternoon.
[Out on the pedal boat]
We capped off that day with a flamenco show in a small enclosed courtyard with vines running up the back wall and birds contributing to the music. There were three musicians and one dancer; it wasn't a super huge production but I liked it better that way. We got there late, and the remaining choice of seats had us at the center at the back, so we had to stand up to be able to see what the dancer was doing with his feet. The dancer was not shy, and when he was running his hands all over his torso and doing his sexy eyes thing towards the back, we just happened to be right in his line of vision. That was a little awkward (for us anyways), but I really respect the guts and confidence it takes to get up in front of people and basically perform a dance that is a giant metaphor for sex while staying in character so well. I don't think I could ever do it though, I'd just crack up.
That was our last night in town, and it capped off a great week of tapas, learning about local architecture and history, cobblestone streets, parks, and nightlife. Up to top
posted by Nora @ 4:52 PM
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