Old town Seville

Seville used to be one of the biggest ports in Spain - even though it is about 90kms from the coast! Seville is on the river Guadalquivir and was a key port for the movement of agricultural products. It is the fifth largest city in Spain.

We went for a drive around town to see some of the main sights. In 1929 Seville staged an exhibition where Spanish and American countries showed off their offerings. Unfortunately the timing was not good as the Great Depression started about the same time. Many of the buildings the various countries built are still standing and in use - the Mexican building is now a maternity hospital so many locals say they were born in Mexico!

The biggest of these buildings is the Plaza de Espana where all the Spanish regions had their own display area or booth so they could push their wares and win business. This place is huge and has lots of ceramic tiles, balustrades and more. See photos.

Afterwards we went to the old town of Seville. As mentioned previously Queen Isabella united the peninsula as one country under one religion. Non-Catholics had to either leave, convert, or die. Many left to places like Morocco, others converted, and many kept a facade of converting. The Spanish Inquisition in 1480 tried to make sure people did convert rules like everyone had to leave the doors to their houses open on Saturdays so officials could come in and check you were working. Of course people worked out ways around this Jews and Muslims paid people to come into their house to cook pork so the smell would convince others they had converted and other ways to keep up the appearance.

We walked through the old Jewish area called Santa Cruz which is now of course a high-end neighbourhood. The streets are very narrow and winding.

Seville has the palace complex called the Alcázar of Seville. This is a royal palace originally built by the Muslims but then converted. It was badly damaged in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and has been rebuilt. Once again the photos show similarities to other Muslim buildings around Spain and Morocco.

In the evening we went to a Flamingo dance show. Very impressive.

Tomorrow we move to the next country - Portugal.Les mer