Exploring Seville

We spent the afternoon exploring Seville with a local guide—to the Real Alcázar (royal palace), the cathedral and around the oldest neighborhood of the city — the Barrio Santa Cruz that was the old Jewish quarter.

The Alcázar was formerly the site of the Moorish fortress of the city, begun in the 10th century and then developed into a larger palace complex over time from the 11th through early 13th centuries. After the Moors were pushed out by the Castilians in 1248, the site was progressively rebuilt and replaced by new palaces and gardens. The Christians liked that the Muslim tower was seismically sound, so they simply added a gothic bell tower on top. The Alcázar was featured in the Game of Thrones (season 6) as the Water Gardens of Dorne, the seat of House Martell.

The Seville Cathedral is enormous—the largest in Spain (nearly 150,000 square feet in area). It is built on the site of a former mosque, dating to the 12th century. At the cathedral’s completion in the 16th century, it was the largest cathedral in the world (nearly 150,000 sq. feet). The central altar is as high as a five-story building. The tomb of Christopher Columbus is there, but a church in the Dominican Republic also claims to have Columbus. Seville decided to x-ray the tomb and found they only have about 15% of his bones. The other church isn’t doing any further research, so no one really knows where the rest of his remains are.Read more