Sevilla a homage to marmalade

It is possible to navigate up the Rio Guadalquivir to Sevilla but we plumped for the train!  It is about an hour and a half away from El Puerto, and cost about half as much as a similar journey in England.  We’ve heard that rail services in Britain are having some trouble at the moment too, so once again we were reminded how lucky we are to be enjoying this adventure!  

Jean and Mike had kindly brought us out a copy of the Rough Guide to Spain and it proved a valuable gift for finding our way round and provided useful information about the main places of interest.  Having studied the Tudor period in History A level and then more recently taught about the Voyages of Discovery to 9-11 year olds I was particularly keen to see the sites relevant to Cristobal Colon, (Christopher Columbus!!) one being an extract from his log book in 1492 and also his tomb, now housed in Cathedral.  The Archives of the Indies, in the old stock exchange, was only open until 1pm so that was our first port of call.  It was interesting to see the carefully painted maps of the newly discovered lands and they often were painted on the reverse pages of the logbooks.  It made me wonder whether to include some pictures in ours sometime.  I could make neither head nor tail of the extract from Columbus’s log but I’m glad I saw it.  

Fortunately, most of the places we wanted to visit were in close proximity to each other.  After a spot of lunch we headed to the Alcazar, a Moorish fortified palace, (once enlarged to house a harem of eight hundred women!) although the current structure was built by the Moors under Christian rule in the fourteenth century.  The detail and intricate designs in the stonework was breathtaking and inside the tiling was laid in elaborate, geometrical patterns on the walls, floor and ceilings!  The gardens were beautiful too, providing tranquillity and shade in a busy city.

Once part of the Mosque, the Giralda minaret is now incorporated into the Cathedral, and provides fantastic views across the city.  It was once used to call the faithful to prayer and as an observatory but was converted to house the church bells after the Christian conquest.  Rather than climbing hundreds of steps to ascend the tower, a series of thirty-five ramps were constructed apparently to allow two mounted guards to pass.  It was still quite a hike, but worth the effort!  The cathedral itself (calculated to be the largest in the world, by volume) was also very impressive, the central nave rising to a height of forty-two metres!  It is also home to Christopher Columbus’ tomb, an enormous nineteenth century monument to the explorer, which was originally erected in the cathedral of Havana but shipped back to Sevilla, after Cuban independence was declared.