Seville

Day 10-Seville

Leaving our oasis, we reluctantly started the trek back to Portugal exchanging stories of Jack the cat along the way. Thom even stating he’s not sure he’s ok will never seeing our American football loving cat again! Today, a stopover in Seville. Our flat not quite ready, Matt skillfully navigated with manual transmission the not so two way sardine like can of a parking garage. Heading to the lively historic heart of Seville, we marveled at the sprawling gothic cathedral. It’s tower, always to be higher than everything thing else in the city, is the center of life in Seville and catholic Spain. A moorish city for 500 years, when reconquered in 1248, the goal was to effectively stomp out the mosque by building a cathedral over it. The result, a sprawling behemoth that is noted in the Guinness book to be the largest cathedral (in square footage) in the world. Turning our sites to the town, we walked the outskirts of the Royal Alcazar and into the Bario Santa Cruz (or Jewish quarter). Quaint narrow streets with shops and restaurants, we stopped to partake in some more stinky cheese and sangria.

Our next adventure, prying the car out the public garage and into the basement of our flat. A first for us all-a car elevator. Once again, Matt was victorious! Taking a little siesta and missing our chance to see the barber, we headed out later to experience an Andalusian tradition-Flamenco! The dancers and singer mostly sad, oftentimes looking like they were in pain, buliding, building and building and then super sweaty at the end-I felt as if I had watched someone giving birth. But after reading more about it, Flamenco was at first the dance of the outcasts/Gypsies in Southern Spain and a form of expression. Morphing later to the romantic and national identity it is today. Afterwards, on to the other typical Spanish tradition. . . Tapas during the 9 pm dinner rush! Getting lost while finding gelato on the way to our flat, fortunately all roads lead to the cathedral, I’m pretty sure purposeful and metaphor for life here in Spain.Read more