Sevilla

There are so many impossibly beautiful buildings in Sevilla, Gail and I joked about it as if each new one was an eyesore. Everywhere you turned, there was a new and different architectural style and colour, tile and sculpture. I took a boat-load of pictures.

The train from Barcelona was very nice. I love the train. I love watching out the window as the landscape changes and colours saturate the view. Once we dumped our bags, went out to start our itinerary of the Real Alcazar. However, we found out that if we purchased tickets that day, we could only enter at 6:30pm and stay until 7:40pm. Not enough time. We ended up getting tickets for the next day.

So we walked over to the Museo de Bellas Artes. Much of the collection was religious and the angel/Jesus/cherub faces were all, well, weird looking. After it hit the 19th and 20th centuries, I really started to enjoy the art and the different styles and ways artists of the day tell their stories in paint.

The next day we walked over to the Gothic Cathedral. It was supposed to open at 10:45am - after mass. But the doors were open and so we got a really good look at the place without giving 16 euro to the Catholic Church. We were fine with that. We have gone into a half dozen big, beautiful Catholic Churches. We got the picture. I was happy to grab a photo into the choir where about 10 older men were singing mass all decked out in their finery. How can these guys be so against drag? They have some pretty flashy outfits and splendid shoes - maybe it’s the competition.

We had plenty of time to make our way through the Parque de Maria Luisa and the Plaza de España. The plaza was built for the 1929 European Expo and they went all out. The tile work representing every province, a short canal for rowing, and a grand plaza. Street performers sang and danced flamenco on the stairs. A perfect spot for those echos of shoes and pleading wails. Gail tried to entice me to row us around the short canal. Looked like a lot of work in the sun for not even a good story.

We were on time for our 3:30 ticket to the Real Alcazar. Holy moly! The plasterwork and design were more than just reminiscent of Morocco but the real deal. I took lots of pictures, but I spent more time just looking; trying to absorb the place. After three hours of wandering from room to room to garden to terrace, we were quite drunk with it. (And a little vertigo from looking up so much - why do they spend so much of the craft on stuff on the ceiling? What is that about?

FindPenguins only lets you do 20 photos. That was not enough for the two days in Sevilla. Real Alcazar photos are on the next post.Read more