Seville

Seville is a beautiful city, with interesting well kept buildings from the past, fountains in the squares and massive cathedrals that defy description. We spent three days visiting and could have easily spent another week wandering through the narrow streets and enjoying good food, sitting outdoors revelling in the fine weather. 

This is the main cathedral that takes up a whole city block, it is massive. 

The amount of artwork inside the Cathedral was astonishing and the gold leaf work was unbelievable. We got to walk up close to the top of one of the towers and views were stupendous. 

We walked up to the last row of big windows and there were viewpoints from all the other windows.  What was unique about walking up was that it was not a stairway, the tower was so wide that there was a slanted circular path all the way to the top.  We had to stand in line for over a half an hour to get inside but once you were in there, it was hard to realize how many people were there, it was so massive there was no feeling of being crowded. 

Later we walked over and took a tour of the big bull ring.  The colour of the sand in the ring was really really yellow. Originally bull fighting started as a way to train military soldiers to fight from horseback, they just used to do it in a square with people watching from their second floor balconies. It evolved into the sport it is today.  If you want to be a matador you have to attend a special school and train for many years and then be very good in order to become a professional. 

A matador's costume and cape

To finish off the day and cover all the Spanish tourist's must, first a church, then the bull fighting ring, we went to see some Flamenco dancing,  I was thrilled, Barry less so. 

Barry's hip has been bothering him so he did not want to go into town the next day, so I set out on the bus to see this building I was interested in. 

It was unbelievably ornate with inlaid tiles everywhere.  I did not do it justice with my pictures, it was a semi-circle with towers at each end and a big tower in the middle, so I am adding a picture I got off the internet.  It was called the Plaza de Espana and was well worth the extra trip into town. 

I also visited this plaza where some new architecture was on display. I finished off the day at another church it to was very ornate.

As I walked back to catch the bus I marvelled at the beautiful buildings just in ordinary use in Seville. We just don't have these type of buildings in North America.