Today, Monday, was the end of the Country Walkers tour, and the beginning of our independent explorations, mostly centering on the Cathedral.
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We got downstairs to breakfast, and dined in a leisurely fashion, since there were no more events to the tour. Made our farewells to our fellow walkers, and to Nick and Bruno, and got off on our walking on our own be 10:30 or so. We got the the Cathedral plaza around 10:50, which was perfect, since the Cathedral’s opening was at eleven.
We had been told that the Sevillanos had wanted their cathedral to rival Saint Peter’s of Rome in size, so they made its interior volume larger. By this measure, it’s the largest church in the world. I thought that the effect was somewhat spoiled by the placement of the choir right in the center. But let’s go on to the pictures:
Top left is a picture that encapsulates Spain, for me anyway: the Gothic cathedral seen through a Moorish doorway. (Small image; large.) Below that, some bishop or other reposes through eternity on a bed that looks to me to be somewhat uncomfortable. I see that Mark’s page says he’s Cardinal Sir Juan de Cervantes, but he sure looks like a bishop to me. But no matter, he really reminds me of one of Escher’s prints. (Small image; large.) At the bottom in that left column is a snap of the choir—I think—or was that a view into one of the many chapels? At any rate, it shows very nicely the kind of very fine wood carving that this church has so much of. (Small image; large.)
In the right-hand column, the upper shot shows the placement of the organ. With our Northern-European orientation, most of us are unaware that Spain has some wonderful organs, and I would have loved to hear this one. Some other time, I guess! (Small image; large.) Then at the bottom, just a nice view through an arch. (Small image; large.)
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I suppose I should have known that Columbus’s tomb would be here in the Seville Cathedral, but I really wasn’t expecting it. Four larger-than-life-sized nobles, their faces of alabaster or highly-polished marble, carry the catafalque. They all have suitably sad expressions, and the whole thing is really nicely done, if you like that kind of display. I wish I had been able to get a better picture, but the light was very dim, so I had to push the camera’s capabilities (and mine, to hold it still enough). I don’t think that Mark’s picture is any more satisfactory than mine, though his page for this day is very good, and you should definitely be going back and forth between the two of us. (Small image; large.)
The lower picture shows an architectural feature that it seems to me we saw somewhere else: an elliptical dome, its exceptional design heightened by an elliptical oculus at top and center. I presume that this is a difficult engineering and design feat, a kind of boasting both by the architect and by the people who paid him. “Take that, Rome, you don’t have anything like this!” (Small image; large.)
After the Cathedral, we went across the street for a little snack, Mark being very careful for his delicate innards, and then back to the hotel. Next on the agenda was the Parque María Luisa, a large and pleasant, but not particularly imaginative or scenic park. There were trees and shrubs from all over, as befits a nation that once bestrode the world. In the picture to the left (small image, large) you see Mark walking ahead of me, and to the right there’s a nice big Ficus macrophylla from South-East Asia and Australia, one of my favorite trees.
After that, we found a very pleasant place, the Taberna los Robles, for lunch, where we had tapas: a half-plate of ham on toast with red-pepper spread beneath the ham, and very fine asparagus points (white, of course!) wrapped in cured salmon and cured cod. It was one of our nicest luncheons.
Back to the hotel for a welcome nap, and then down to the lobby, where we ran into the Shores, the Mazers, and the Reynoldses. They would all be flying out in the morning, and we decided, Mark and I, to try to get down for a final breakfast in time to see them. The two of us then wandered about town in search of a suitable restaurant—we hadn’t felt like making a reservation—and finally hit on a place that seemed kind of dark and touristy, and didn’t inpire much confidence. And thence to bed, after each of us took a protective gulp of Pepto in case the restaurant’s food should wish us ill.
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External architectural detail from Cathedral small image; big |
No bar on hotel roof, as had been advertised, but there was this view. small image; big |
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