SEVILLE: DOIN’ THE STOMP

The day did not start well.  Had trouble sleeping last night, so I took an Ambien about 1:30.  It worked too well.  Neither of us awoke until 9:30 this morning.  That wouldn’t be so bad at home, but here we missed breakfast and had a 9:45 bus departure time.  Who’s that speedy comic character?  The Flash?  Well, he had nothing on us.  From zero to bus in 14:59!  I felt lousy all morning from the residual effects of the pill.  Our first stop of the day was the Seville cathedral, the biggest in Spain and the 3rd largest in the world after St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s. 

On our way there, we walked past this wacky monument to the discovery of America.  It’s a ship, if you can’t make it out.  It reminds me of the flying boat in the Terry Gilliam movie, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

The old mosque (1171) and the subsequent old cathedral were torn down in 1491, save for the minaret, and Sevillans built their new cathedral in just over a century – light speed when compared with others.  The minaret became the bell tower for the church.

Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones wanting to get in.  Actually, this is the only time on the entire tour that I can remember us having to get into a long line.  We usually had a group pass that let us go ahead.  Surprisingly, this line didn’t take that long to enter – about 15-20 minutes.

Once inside, it was very Baroque.  Despite its immense size, it had a shockingly low seating capacity of only 250 until it was decided to reorient the worship area by moving the alter to one of the naves, thus seating everyone across.  Presto:  now seating for 2,500. 

There were some soaring aspects, as seen at right, which shows some of the 7,000 pipes for the double organ.  Back in the day, it required 80 men to pump the air for the thing.

For the most part, everything in the cathedral, beautiful though it might be, is hidden behind huge iron grates, effectively ruining the views.  Below is the huge high altarpiece in the main chapel, stunningly gold, but all but invisible from outside the grate (left) and rather awe-inspiring once you poke your camera between the bars (right).  This is the largest altarpiece in Christendom, measuring 65 feet by 43.  It depicts 36 scenes from the life of Christ, and is constructed of gold overlay on chestnut wood.

Here’s a closer view of some of the 36 scenes:

and a closeup of the nativity one just above the silver statue; exquisite detail work.  I’m rather pleased with this, as it is not a telephoto, but rather just a crop from the above shot, which itself is a crop.  My new camera has no telephoto beyond 70mm, which is nothing, but its large sensor allows me to get more detail for cropping.

Seville has a history of great seafaring journeys.  It was the port of embarkation on August 10, 1519, for Magellan’s ill-fated (for him, anyway) around-the-world cruise.  The cathedral boasts that it is the burial place of Columbus, and there is a monument to him showing his coffin borne aloft by the four kings representing the medieval kingdoms of Spain:  Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Navarra. The one closest in the picture below is holding an oar in his right hand to symbolize the discovery of America.

Now, Columbus isn’t really buried here, at least not all of him.  They have maybe 150 grams of his remains, confirmed by DNA, but he was moved often and no one is really sure where the rest lies.  There’s a tomb in Santa Domingo, and he actually died in Valladolid, northwest of Madrid.  Seville has a number of ties to the U.S.  It’s patron saint is Fernando, after whom L.A.’s San Fernando Valley was named.  It’s sister city in the U.S. is Kansas City, which has a replica of the Plaza Monument in one of its shopping malls.  No shopping malls here.  After the cathedral, we were on our own, so we poked around the winding streets.

Time for lunch, so we circled back to the cathedral area and picked out one that had been recommended by our guide, called Genova.  We both had salads (shown) and shared an order of Spanish “omelet.”  Forget what we know as that in the States; throughout Spain it’s sort of a potato quiche.  Tasty, but nothing to rave about.  I think mine is some sort of marinated fish with avocado.  I’ll tell you, it’s an adventure ordering when you can’t read the menu, and the “English speaking” waiters are frequently just as fractured in their English as I am with Spanglish.

Whenever you sit down at a restaurant in Spain, they immediately bring out a dish of olives, some bread, and some butter.  These are not free!  If you don’t waive off the waiter and say you don’t want them, they are added to the bill.  We usually kept them (see the depleted olive dish on the left) as the olives were delicious, the bread tasty, and the butter, well, it was butter!  After lunch, one more stroll before we caught the bus.

Back at our hotel – the Hotel Melia Sevilla – we kicked back for a while before our evening excursion to the Flamenco show this evening.  We stayed in the Melia chain for most of our nights in Spain, and they were all quite nice in décor and furnishings, but they all had uniformly puzzling (yet all different) controls for the A/C.  I never did get this one to work, and it made for a stuffy night as opening the window let in too much street noise.  Others reported similar problems.

Flamenco is on UNESCO’s list of “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.”  Whew!  And I thought it was just tap dancing.  Anyway, you can’t come to Seville, the home of Flamenco, without seeing a show.  I was supremely skeptical, but came away biting my tongue.  It was pretty neat.  However, I still maintain a little goes a long way.  We went to one of the oldest companies, dating from 1952, El Patio de Sevillano.  We had great seats, right down in front (thank you, Collette), and the performance was right in our face.  For me, this woman just oozed the essence of the dance.  She looks utterly classical.

The guys on the right and the left don’t play any instrument, they stand there and clap in time to the dancing.  Two (sometimes three) guitarists are behind.  No flash photography allowed, so this is all available lighting, which was often dim and oddly colored.  I longed to stand up and take photos, but I had many rows of viewers behind me.  I’ve cropped these as best I can, but the heads in front of me still intrude.

The show lasted about an hour and a half, so we got our money’s worth, and the dancing seemed to be excellent to my untutored eyes.  We had a lot of fun.  Our group ole’d like crazy, and the dancers seemed to appreciate it.  The rest of the room were duds.  One of the male dancers was hilarious with his smug pompous airs, but I guess it’s all part of the theatre.  I could have done without the large woman’s caterwauling.  Too much like opera for me.  Well, in fact, they were doing a flamenco version of a snippet from Carmen! 

Right up the street from the flamenco place was the local Plaza De Toros, and they were having the first bullfight session of the two-week season tonight, complete with camera crews on cranes.  Despite mingling about just in front, we never heard anything from within.  No oles.  It made for a very pretty sight with the setting sun bouncing off.  They don’t hold bullfights year-round, but make a traveling circuit to various cities.  Like rodeos, I guess.

Despite missing breakfast, and only a salad lunch, we decided to skip dinner and hop the bus back to the hotel.  We didn’t miss the food a bit (yesterday we overstuffed).  Since the hotel was near it, we took a twilight dash over to the Plaza de Espana where I just managed to get in a shot before nightfall.  This was Spain’s centerpiece pavilion at the 1929 World’s Fair.  I wanted to take a panorama shot, but I couldn’t get the camera to allow it.  Some other setting must be conflicting.  So, this is just a part of it as it continues to sweep around way to the left.  Technology in the dark.  Bah!

Another lousy night tonight.  I had to open the window for some air, and was treated to the cacophony of the trash pickup in the streets below until midnight.  Things quieted down until the woman in the adjacent room starting shrieking and cackling with laughter for a half hour, then commenced to snore loudly.  Curse my Vulcan hearing!