Monday, July 09, 2012
Seville Treasures – Plaza’s and Cathedrals and Columbus himself
We are starting to learn that Mondays are the slow days in Spain – although the tourist sights are open, many restaurants are closed and the pace is much slower. Mike & I headed out early to the city this morning on our own to allow Mike some photo ops.
Every corner you turn on every walk we take brings another spectacular building with beautiful detail and incredible craftsmanship. While most buildings are older, even the new buildings have a style we are not accustomed to in North America. Even the lamp posts – which are quite new – are thoughtfully designed and integrated with the environment.
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I had the classic Spanish breakfast – cafe con leche with tomato tostado (Mike is off of gluten so has to skip the bread) sitting across from the Seville Cathedral which is the 3rd largest in the world and the largest Gothic one in the world. We took a walk past the cathedral but knowing we were meeting up with Marucia and GL we travelled on past to return later.
We headed to the Santa Maria Luisa Park which took us past many more inspring buildings. We crossed through the university, museum, and an old theatre (now a casino) before getting to the park. We also passed the Torre del Oro which is a 12th century Muslim tower which protected the city along side the Guadalquivir river which runs through Seville from the Mediterranean – it is placed at the spot furthers up the river where navigation from the sea is possible. It is now a marine museum (which we later visited).
In the late 1880’s one of the infantas donated the land to the city which became Santa Maria Luisa Park.
In the early 1910’s, the south end of Seville was rejuvenated in preparation for the Iberia-American exposition of 1918.
A massive Plaza de Seville was built at the one end of the 1/2 mile long park. Every province of Spain sponsored a tile panel around the massive semi-circular building – with a fountain the centre and a moat encircling the inside semi circle of the building. There are large towers at either end a central tower all joined by a 3 story building.
Today they are primarly in use as office spaces, so you are not able to tour inside of the buildings – but you can see from the photos here that the exterior is still well maintained and impressive.
Although we did not have time to walk through the rest of the park, it is full of horticultural gardens complete with green parrots in the orange garden.
We returned to the cathedral to meet up with Marucia and GL for our 2nd breakfast before heading into the cathedral.