Nice Monday 8th Sept

 Wednesday 22nd May Seville 

We had a local tour guide who walked us to the Cathedral Santa Maria, the third biggest in the world after St Peter’s in Rome and St Paul’s in London. Originally a mosque it was extended into a Gothic Cathedral and is the burial place of Christopher Columbus. There is also 3 tons of gold and 7 tons of silver in its interior decoration. Hard to get a photo of the full exterior as it is hemmed in by other buildings. About 130 metres by 73 metre in size, taking up a whole block.

We did manage to go inside through the rear door, whilst mass was being observed. The organ music and singing were very atmospheric. The area we saw was for the poor people most of the gold would be on the other side of the choir were the more wealthy would attend, 

The last photo gives an indication of the girth of the columns and the height, nice to be able to call in and see it without waiting in the long queue that was forming around the side when we left.

Then it was to the Alcazar, built around 1360 by Peter the 1st (Pedro) sometimes called the cruel and sometimes the Just.Apparently he lived in the castle with his wife and his mistress, his mistress having the superior room,but when he learned his wife was having and affair with his brother he killed the brother and imprisoned his wife. Is that cruel or Just?? Although he was catholic he was on good terms with Jews and Moors and had Moors design and build his Alcazar .

This is the indoor swimming pool, not very deep  but about 25 metres long.the gardens were lovely but not quite as in flower as in Cordoba and Granada 

Then after fortifying myself on Churros and Chocolate, whilst others had wine and beer we went down to the river for a cruise. Where we embarked was the Tower of gold -El Torre d’Oro which is where they counted the gold that came from the Americas, Seville is about 100 Km from the ocean but has the only navigable river.

This is a replica of one of Christopher Columbus’ ships 

The cruise was for about an hour it was relaxing after a busy morning walking - perhaps not too much to see but enjoyable nevertheless, we had some Spanish ladies behind us who talked non stop and they do seem to be very loud and enthusiastic!

Lunch was Tapas at a local bar, that was very busy and had a lot of ambiance?? We were in a similar place for our tea, I had a plate of roasted peppers and goats cheese baked with honey that was on a thin sweet biscuit - everything is usually very meat and potato based so was nice to have some verges it was absolutely delicious!