Andalusia 2019 - Part 6 - Walk Around Seville

After the cathedral, we had a couple of hours to walk around Seville. 

These are the highlights of that (plus one from between the Plaza de Espana and the Alcazar). That one is this.  It's a very nice set of pillars with a boat.

 

View on the Guadalquivir

Statue of King Juan Carlos's mother  

Not quite sure why she's outside Seville's bull ring, but there she is. 

Statue of a matador outside Seville's bullring  

Him, I know why he's there. It is a statue of Curro Romero (more information here). 

Of course, there is also a statue of She, The Woman, Carmen.

 

(If I talk about Carmen and don't share something from Carmen 1983, please assume I have been kidnapped.) 

And since we're outside the bullring, please also have this  

We also looked round the outside of the Torre del Oro (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_del_Oro) 

The Torre del Oro is called that because it is made of mortar, lime and pressed hay, and it projects a golden shine onto the river. 

It's is a three level tower. 

The first level is 12-sided and dates from 1220, under the Almohads. 

The second layer, also 12 sided, is from the 14th century, under Peter of Castille. 

The third, circular, layer is a replacement for the previous one which was destroyed during the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

   

With that, we said farewell to Seville.

Andalusia 2019 - Part 5 - Seville Cathedral

After the Alcazar, we went on to Seville Cathedral.

The outside featured many orange trees.   

It was a very impressive building.  

We went inside. No photos because I tend not to inside churches, (not without explicit permission, holy sites are holy etc), so you will have to rely on websites for the indoor pictures. 

The big highlight is the tomb of Christopher Columbus (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tomb-of-christopher-columbus) which is full of symbolism. 

(In a statement to annoy L. the Assassin's Creed film did a very good job of recreating the inside) 

I then walked up to the top of the Giralda bell tower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giralda). I cannot comment on whether the walkways are big enough to walk horses up and down, as the story goes, but they certainly were broader and were flat not stairs, so far easier to climb. 

Meet the Lizard of Seville Allegedly a real crocodile was a gift from the Sultan of Egypt for Alfonso X. It has been replaced with a wooden model since then. 

View from about mid way up  

View from about the top: View back to the alcazar

 

Another view from the top

Andalusia 2019 - Part 4 - the Alcazar, Seville

 

I warned you I'd cheat and add a ninth photo in some of these. 

At the end of the last post, I explained we had to get to Alcazar exactly on time. I expect that's always required, but it was made more of a thing by the circumstances of when the tour was. I must draw you back to the beforetimes and the heady days of Summer 2019, possibly the height of Game of Thrones mania. The show runners had used the Alcazar as the Dornish palaces (https://www.andalucia.org/en/game-of-thrones-in-andalusia), so there were even more people than usual wanting to see it. According to our tour guide, you booked 6 months ahead if you wanted tickets to see inside. 

And, as you'll hopefully see from my photos, you really want to go inside. (For more information, please see: https://www.andalucia.org/en/sevilla-visitas-real-alcazar-de-sevilla, www.alcazarsevilla.org or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alc%C3%A1zar_of_Seville). 

The Alcazar is where I really went OTT on the photographs. It's because the things I like in art and design, whether it's painting, architecture or decorative objects, is colour, shape and texture. Mudéjar style is basically catnip for me. One of the rooms that leads out onto the patio de las Doncellas  

Unfortunately my notes and memory can't remember if the tour guide said anything about the little face being deliberate or whether it's just an accidental pattern made by the weathering, but I find it intriguing. 

One of the ceilings in one of the rooms of the Palacio Mudéjar or Palacio de Pedro I, depending who's talking. Many of the rooms in the Palacio Mudéjar are that style and covered in gold leaf or gold in the same way.

 

There were also historical treasures.  

I think it's the idea that someone >500 years ago saw exactly the same thing, and it's still there that gets me. 

The inside decorations are but one of the highlights. The gardens are spectacular, and not sharing some of those photos was one of the hardest decisions when cutting this down to 8 photos. 

I am sharing one of those below because the contrast of how green it was and the aridity of the surrounding countryside, as seen around Ronda and Grazalema really helped explain the things about the first wave of Caliphs saying "this, this is what heaven looks like." (Some paraphrasing from the story involved)

   

One day I'd like to go back to walk around it at my own speed and do more ooh-ing and ahh-ing.

Andalusia 2019 - Part 3 - Plaza de España, Seville

(This is the first of the posts where I'm cheating and adding a 9th photo with the excuse of it being a sign) 

From the hotel in Seville, our coach went along the road of buildings built for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition and then onto the Plaza de España. I would have liked to have spent more time here. 

It was fascinating building/monument (more information here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_de_Espa%C3%B1a,_Seville or here https://www.andalucia.com/cities/seville/plazadeespana.htm). 

A tile rendering of the Plaza - What the tile map doesn't convey, because it can't, is the curve of building, and the intricacies of its decoration. The two towers at the ends face each other and the building surrounds the plaza. This is the left side tower.

   

And here are some close ups of some of the decorative tiling.  

The building was designed by Aníbal González, and they put up a statue of him, in 2011, probably commemorating the restoration. (The restoration work is excellent) 

As the Andalusian tourism board website suggests, I did take a photo of the Seville alcove, which is where the photo at the start comes from. 

We had to rush, because we had to walk from the Plaza de España to the Alcazar so we were there for our tickets slot.

Andalusia 2019 - Part 2 - Grazalema

Grazalema is much smaller than Ronda, very much a village, sitting more or less in the middle of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park (https://www.andalucia.com/province/cadiz/grazalema/home.htm). It's a very pretty village.

  with roots back to the Visigoths. The Visigoth fountains are ridiculously cute.  

It also has vultures. No-one in the coach party thought they saw one, but there were some very carnivorous-looking silhouettes in the sky. 

Grazalema also has an excellent bull-related statue. Much like Pamplona, it has a day where a bull is allowed to run. 

Following the short visit to Grazalema, our coach party moved on to Seville.

Andalucia 2019 - Ronda

This was my last big trip before COVID. Given everything that's happened since, I'm glad I went then.

My poor unfortunate mother (TM) had always wanted to visit the Alhambra. Given one of her friends's advice to seize the day, I felt it would make an excellent birthday present. 

We decided to go on a coach tour. I know all the coach trip jokes (and I was the youngest person on the trip by 15 years) but they provide a really good service, giving you a taster of something. 

It definitely did that, and I have plans to return to Andalusia. But then again, I've been planning to go to Stockholm since 2017. 

I went entirely OTT on photos and was going to promise to restrain myself to 8 photos and the occasional town sign per post, but the I hit my Seville photos and realised I would fail that one miserably, so the plan is 8 photos per post, but splitting a couple of days into more than 1 post. 

The trip was 8 days long. The first day was a flight to Spain and then recovery. 

Theoretically, because the flight was so early and because we arrived at the hotel at 11 am, you could have gone to Malaga or Torremolinos in the afternoon. 

However, it was a very early flight so Mum was not up for further movement, so she rested and I spent the afternoon sunbathing and swimming. 

The next day we went to Ronda and Grazalema on the way to Seville. 

This post focuses on Ronda. 

First let me admit my ignorance. Before the trip, I'd never heard of Ronda. Now I have. And I want to go back. It's fantastically interesting, and I do recommend it. 

For further information, please see this remarkably detailed page from the Andalusian Tourism body - https://www.andalucia.org/en/ronda 

Because of the gorge it's built on, the split between the old and new (1700s) towns is part of what makes it so remarkable.  

It was part of the Romantic trail  

It does mean that there's a fair bit of  "Orson Welles was here" going on 

The city also does a modern twist on this, having as it does, a road named for Kazunori Yamauchi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazunori_Yamauchi). As you do. 

The Bullring in Ronda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_de_Toros_de_Ronda) is one of the oldest in Spain and is the home of the Real Maestranza de Caballería, the oldest order of bullfighting in Spain. (Madonna fans will recognise it from the video to "Take a Bow" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDeiovnCv1o) 

It definitely has an excellent statue of a bull outside  

My photo doesn't do it justice, you know those statues that are full of life and feeling, it's one of those.

Ronda was also where the Constitution of Andalusia and it's flag were formally adopted (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_of_Ronda), which is why Independence Square has two giant Andalusian flags flying.

   

We spent the morning in Ronda and then on to Grazalema.