Seville; Monday, 10 March, 2008

If the Sevillians have an earlier attitude towards dinner than their countrymen in Madrid, then the same could not be said for Breakfast. The hotel quite happily carries on serving breakfast until a very leisurely 10:30 and I intended to make use of this by having a lie-in. Sadly, I hadn’t taken into account the Phantom Driller, who this morning, as he (or possibly she) would every morning started up at a little after 8am, forcing me from my bed and out to breakfast by 8:30. On the plus side, I did get to see more of the city!

After a very hearty breakfast (perhaps their Latin brothers in Italy could take some lessons!) I headed out into town to do some sightseeing. My options were limited by my old adversary, Monday! The only thing that was fully open would be the Cathedral and the bus and river tours, so I would have to occupy myself with these today, and then try and fit the whole of the rest of Seville into tomorrow.

I walked back through the old town to the riverside to pick up the open-top bus tour of the city. The tour runs around the outside of the city centre roughly tracing the lines of the old city walls, with a short diversion into the site of the 1929 Ibero-American Exhibition and later on in the tour the 1992 World Expo site. Of the two, the 1929 buildings appear to have fared far better than their more than sixty-year younger counterparts at the Expo site have.

After doing one full circuit of the tour I got back off the bus back at the Torre del Oro and walked back to the cathedral. Having had another wander around the outside of the building in daylight to take in it’s sheer scale (it’s officially the worlds larges Cathedral by volume, but possibly only because St Peters in Rome and the Notre Dame in Paris are Basilicas not Cathedrals!), I wandered inside. The cathedral is a massive network of small courtyards, chapels, side rooms and passageways, so there is lots to explore. The inside of the main part of the Cathedral is spectacular with it’s massive cavernous interior and spectacular gold decoration everywhere. After having explored the cathedral it was time to climb the Giralda.

The Cathedral was built in the 15th century, following the re-conquest of Spain from the Moors, on the site of the former Mosque, with many of the details of the Mosque retained. It’s minaret was adapted and turned into the Giralda, the bell tower of the cathedral and from the viewing platform just below the bells, the best viewpoint in the city. The climb up is quite easy as the tower was designed for people to ascend on horses, so it’s ramps the whole way to the top, with just a short flight of stairs to take you out onto the viewing platform. From here the views over the city centre were spectacular.

Having taken in the views I descended back down to the cathedral floor and exited through the Patio of the Orange Trees, part of the original Mosque complex, a large square with ranks of orange trees laid out, all in full blossom and creating a glorious aroma.

I had a bit of a wander through the old town stopping for a good lunch in one of the little café’s for a spot of tapas before heading back down to the river side to go on a cruise down the river. Having done the cruise I decided that it probably hadn’t been worth it as it sails up the river for 15 minutes, turns round sails back past the Torre del Oro where it starts on for a further 15 minutes then turns round again and comes back with very little commentary, and not that much actually visible from the boat.

I got off the boat just in time to catch the sightseeing bus one stop round to the Plaza España, part of the Ibero-America exhibition site of 1929. The buildings of the exhibition are in the parkland of the Parque Maria Luisa and in the late afternoon it was very pleasant to spend some time wandering around the park, taking in all the buildings of the exhibition. By the time I had wandered around the park and back to the Plaza España the final sightseeing bus of the day was pulling up, so I decided to go around the route once more, sitting on the opposite side of the bus, to take in more of the sights.

I was back at the Torre del Oro just under 45 minutes later (the driver appeared to want to get home fast!) but it was still to early to go for dinner, so instead I wandered back to the hotel to drop most of my stuff off before heading back out a short while later for a very pleasant dinner in a little side street just up from the Cathedral.