We went to Sevilla first and the bus ride only took about three hours. When we arrived, we went straight to our first tour. We began at Reales Alcázares, which is the royal palace in Seville that started out as a Moorish fort. It's the oldest royal palace in Europe that's still in use. Because of its Moorish influences, the palace reminded me a lot of the Alhambra.
After the tour of Reales Alcázares, we went to Seville Cathedral, which in Spanish is called Catedral de Santa María de la Sede. It's the largest Gothic cathedral and third largest church in the entire world. A lot of famous figures are buried there, including Christopher Columbus and some of the most important kings in Spanish history like Ferdinand III of Castille. The church is gigantic and beautiful, but since I've seen a lot of Gothic cathedrals already, the only thing that made this one extra special was its size. Here's the cathedral. It's so big that it doesn't all fit into one photo, but this was my best attempt.
Below is the tomb of Christopher Columbus. The story behind his remains is ridiculously complicated. According to our tour guide, they started out in a monastery in Valladolid, Spain, where Columbus died. After about forty years, they were transferred to the Dominican Republic. A Few hundred years later, France took over Spain (then known as Hispaniola) and moved the remains to Havana, Cuba. When Cuba gained its independence around 1900, what was left of the remains were moved to Seville where they still are today. The four figures holding up the box where the remains are actually stored represent the four kingdoms of Spain during Columbus' life - Castille, Aragon, Navara, and Leon.
My favorite part of the cathedral was the tower. It was about thirty five stories high and you walk up a never ending ramp to get to the top. The reason it's a ramp instead of stairs is because people used to ride their horses up there, which worked out better for me since 35 stories of ramps is a little more manageable. Here's the view of Sevilla from the tower.
After we were done wandering around the cathedral, we had some free time to walk around the Santa Cruz quarter and eat lunch. It was fun wandering through the shops and all of the little alleys, but everything looks very similar so it's really easy to get lost! Córdoba is better known for its confusing alleyways, but I made sure to be extra aware of my surroundings in Sevilla too.
The next thing on the itinerary was Plaza de España which is located in Parque de María Luisa. It was built in 1928 for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition World's Fair. The whole area was absolutely gorgeous. You can't see in these pictures, but along the building there are little tiled alcoves representing each of the fifty provinces of Spain.
We had some free time to explore Plaza de España, but after a while there wasn't much else to do there so we went over to this festival we found on the way to the plaza. It was the Festival de las Naciones (Festival of the Nations), which basically consisted of little booths with food and trinkets from various countries around the world. It was really cute and I ended up buying a scarf from one of the booths.
After that we all went to the hotel, checked in, and ate dinner. I had a cold and wasn't feeling well at all so I didn't want to participate in any night activities. I walked around the neighborhood of our hotel for a little while but there wasn't much there. I went back to my room, put my pajamas on, watched TV, and went to sleep.
That night was daylight savings, which is a week earlier in Europe for some reason. I'm not quite sure what happened, but all of our alarm clocks were messed up so we woke up an hour late. My roommates were freaking out which was super funny but we had plenty of time to get downstairs before check out so I wasn't concerned. It took about two hours to drive from Sevilla to Córdoba. You can't drive in the old part of the city because the streets are so narrow so we had to get off of our bus outside the city and walk in on this bridge.
We got to see the Jewish quarter of Córdoba, known as the Juderia, which was really fun for me because there's not much Jewish life in Spain these days. Jews don't live there anymore, but in its hay day Córdoba was known for its tolerance amongst the three main religions (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity). We toured La Sinagoga de Córdoba but it literally took two seconds because it's about the same size as my bedroom.
Another popular attraction in Córdoba is Calleja de las Flores which just translates to the flower alley. It's very pretty and has the traditional flower pots on the wall. The reason people started putting flower pots on the outside of the buildings in Spain is because the walls would crack pretty frequently. Instead of fixing the entire wall, they just put flower pots over them to hide the problem and make the building prettier at the same time.
The last thing we did in Córdoba was visit La Mezquita de Córdoba, which is considered one of the biggest monuments in Islamic architecture. It was built in 600 and is famous for its big red arches as well as the giant cathedral that was built smack dab in the middle during the reconquest in 1236. Our tour guide pointed out that when you walk into the mosque, you feel at home but not overwhelmed, whereas all the cathedrals we saw were built to intimidate whoever walks inside them.
You can see in the picture below the transition from the mosque to the cathedral. It's very clear where the mosque ends and the cathedral starts since the styles are so dramatically different. Because of how the cathedral was built into the mosque, the structures can't survive without each other. The building is still considered a cathedral even though it's called the Mosque of Córdoba so Muslims aren't technically allowed to pray there, which in recent years has been quite controversial.
My weekend in Sevilla and Córdoba was a bit of a blur because it went by so quickly, but I really enjoyed getting to see some of the buildings I've studied for years in my history classes!
No comments:
Post a Comment