Life: Idiotropic

Seville.  Even in the drizzle, there is just something about Seville.  A rhythm, a feeling, something in the breeze that lifts you up and carries you away.  I love walking out of my apartment door, strolling across the wide flat rooftop towards the edge and looking out at the mosaic of rooftops and church towers.  It just feels good to be there.

One of the special moments that I almost always reserve only for me is the daily buying of the bread.  It's a vacation thing - at least when we're staying within walking distance of a baker.  In Paris too, I'd get up early, then venture out to find breakfast while the others finished getting ready.  Here in Seville, it is entirely too easy.  The door of our building looks directly across the street into a bakery that serves the most amazing chocolate fartones ever.  This morning, I walked in, looked around at the cases of goodies, thought for a moment that I should order 4 of each cookie, got a hold of myself, and tried to be rational (a trait that does not come easily while standing in a crowded bakery).  Rational.  Ok.  Deep breath.  We have salami and milk already.  There are 6 of us.  I order one baguette, two small leak chicken tarts, and three chocolate fartones that are easily long enough to be cut in half and shared.  6.70 Euros is a great deal.  May be I should have gotten 4 of each cookie.  The family not only loved the goodies, but inhaled them so quickly that I had them asking for more.  Ugh.  15 minutes later, I'm standing there again, but at least this time it's an easy decision and I could get enough to may be last for a late night snack or breakfast the next day.  2 baguettes, 4 tarts (because Arianna ate half of mine and wants 2 more), and 3 fartones de chocolate.

It was noon by the time we left and raining lightly.  I had the map up tracking us on my phone, so only had to glance at it occasionally to know where we were.  The churches here are like coffee shops in Seattle in their abundance, but none are ordinary.  Even the simpler structures have beautiful tile art on the walls and some even have small slits for walk-by offerings.  They are all so pretty that Kirk kept asking me.

     "Is that the Cathedral?"
     "No."
     "Is that the Cathedral?"
     "No, you'll know it when you see it."
     "Are you sure that's not the Cathedral?"

I could see the tower in the distance.  I was sure.  It was getting closer, but "The Cathedral" would be something fairly special and in a fairly special area as well.  Besides, we still have more narrow streets of shops to get through.

Oh the shopping.  Nothing is exactly cheap, but the abundance of shops is incredible and not just tacky souvenir junk, here in Seville you can find really stunning, high quality things.  The fans and scarves, the dresses, beautiful hair pieces, jewelry.  It's a Sunday and all the shops are open.  That fact alone is nothing short of miraculous.

Now this is amazing.  In Seville's Jewish Quarter within which you'll find not one remaining synagogue (that isn't surprising, just sad), there is a Muslim Palace and an enormous Cathedral.  Three faiths often at odds exist here together in architecture.  Lucky for us, the rocks don't fight or we'd be posing in front of heaps of rubble instead of these works of art and culture.

The Muslim Giralda (tower), now part of the Cathedral, dominates the view as you approach.  That was my landmark and I knew it the moment we arrived.  A line of horse drawn carriages sat in the mist circling the church, a clear sign we were someplace special.  Beyond them the buildings sat back along the border of a huge open plaza with decorative pyramids of poinsettias sprinkled about.  We found the only open Cathedral entrance, but it was a Sunday, so services were in progress.  We could come back later.

To the right across a lesser plaza stands the Reales Alcazares, the old Mudejar palaces and a current vacation home of Spain's current king and queen.  We walked slowly there.  Kirk had Arianna and Luci with him.  I was wandering a bit taking pictures.  Tiara walked with Elise.  I stood about 20 feet away watching as a gypsy woman approached Tiara and took her hand.  She put a sprig of rosemary in one palm and closed her fingers around it, then took her other hand and examined Tiara's other palm telling her, I assume, something about her life or her future.  She pointed to Elise and took Elise' hand as well.  The gypsy was speaking Spanish the entire time.  Tiara didn't understand a word.  Tiara began to walk away, not understanding that this was a game of sorts.  The gypsy stood in her way and put out her hand for money.  It took Tiara a moment to understand, then frustrated and unsure what to say or do, she quickly handed the rosemary back to the woman, grabbed Elise' hand, and walked to me.  "Why didn't you save me?"  She was exasperated, but I thought it was a good experience.  This is part of life in Europe - life everywhere.


We entered the Mudejar palace which is really inexpensive to visit like many Spanish monuments.  I was a bit out of sorts when I visited this, so I don't think it made as much of an impact as it should have.  That, and like many Spain attractions, they gave us no map or information with our tickets, so we wandered through, but didn't feel like we actually knew where we were going and didn't know what exactly we were looking at historically.  The upstairs palace rooms were fully booked and the immense gardens were closed due to weather, so there was also a lot that we didn't see.  Still, it was pretty.  There are a lot of similarities between this and the Alhambra, but of course, this is on a much smaller scale, so although there is phenomenal beauty, it pales after seeing the Alhambra.  The gardens, on the other hand, from the tiny bit I was able to see, are spectacular.  Sad that the rain forbid our visiting them.

From the Mudejar we turned to our right to wander a bit through the old Jewish quarter, a cozy area of whitewashed old buildings, cobbled streets, tight corners at the end of narrow alleys, small courtyards and the occasional aged tree.  A place once bustling with the culture and life of Jews, a place once full of Synagogues.  Today I didn't even see a commemorative plaque.  Not one synagogue or scribble of Hebrew.  Now the streets are filled with tourists, tapas bars, and dotted flamenco dresses in gift shop windows.  A keen eye and you can find some real artists here - pottery and handpainted silk scarves and fans.  Regardless of its sad history, this busting barrio maintains an upbeat atmosphere.  Even in the light rain, people crowded into warm dimly lit bars for tapas and flamenco strains flowed from doorways.  We stood outside one tapas place deliberating food.  To eat, not to eat, to eat here, to find somewhere else.  Sometimes traveling with six makes decisions difficult.  An even split and the decision becomes mine.

We ate at an unusually brightly lit tapas bar that seemed like it would be the most kid friendly.  After all, they serve crepes.  We enjoyed about 3 minutes before the smoke started, but going somewhere else wouldn't guarantee clean air.  As of January 1st of this year, smoking is supposed to be banned for food establishments.  It's true on paper only.  So far, every place I've been has been just as smokey if not more.  It almost seems as if the Spanish here are lighting up twice as much just to get a few more in before the law is actually observed.

The waitress brought books for the girls which was nice.  They enjoyed the diversion, so kid-friendly earns points.  The waitresses also began to sing and dance to a song that came on the radio which was oddly entertaining.  Luci loved her banana nutela crepe (bad mom, I know, but this is vacation).  Tiara and I loved our goat cheese on canondigas salads.  Rediculously small, but soooo good.  I don't remember what Elise or Kirk ordered which means that it was neither stupendous nor awful, but poor Aria.  She ordered fish.  And she's my fish girl, so normally it would be fine, but her beautifully pink, large chunk of salmon on toast was absolutely swimming in some thick white mayonaisy goo that neither her nor I had the stomach for and even though I scraped it off, there was no ridding the fish of that flavor.  Blech.  Time to go.  We step out the doors into gusty wind and rain which got heavier as we approached the Cathedral and found the end of the line to get in.

Huddled under umbrellas we stood in the cold and waited until one of the employees grabbed us and a few others and took us to another entrance to hasten the line.  We entered at the Patio de las Naranjas, a large opening within the cathedral complex that I would have loved to explore if it were not raining. That patio is one of two things kept from the original Mosque that was built in this site in 1184, the other is the Giralda bell tower which we would go to next.  Amazing.  This is like no other tower I've ever climbed.  A wide ramp spirals all the way up almost to the top with small doorways and windows all around to stop, take in the view, and snap a few photos.  Built like this so that men could ride horses up this defensive tower, it's the only time I've seen something like this that is actually wheelchair/stroller friendly - a stark contrast to the steep ladders I've climbed up in towers of similar height.
That is the best part.  The Giralda.  It's simple, beautiful, and allows you views of the Cathedral itself that are interesting like the narrow canals carved into the stone crossbeams to allow for water to filter down to the gargoyles below - details that you rarely get to see in other cathedrals.

Apparently this Cathedral is the largest Gothic structure in Europe and a UNESCO world heritage site.  It is big and beautiful, but I think I've been desensitized to old European cathedrals.  They're all big and somewhat pretty - or just horrifically overdone, so sometimes they start to look similar and less special, this one has just enough to set it apart.  Pierre Dancart's alterpiece, a lifetime work comprised of a series of historical scenes carved and then painted, is impressive.  It sits at the front of the nave drawing the focus away from anything else there.  We walked around the periphery to see each of the small chapels all created in different styles - 80 of them.  The columns throughout this church are unusually wide - so much so that Luci spread out her arms in front and probably covered only half of one side.   And although most Cathedrals have some pretty special people buried within, this one houses the body of Christopher Columbus on one side of the church in a corner without pomp or heraldry.  It is simply held by the statues of men on one side of the church without any big signs.  In fact, he has as much recognition as the giant crocodile that hang's over the "lizard door" by the Orange Courtyard.  Yes, this cathedral is special in that it houses both Columbus and a giant lizard.  Apparently the Sultan of Egypt gave this crocodile to King Alfonso X as a gift.   When the animal died, they dried his body and hung it where a wooden replica hangs now.  It seems that "Medieval Christian also frequently hung preserved exotic items from the rafters of churches to evoke awe at the wondrous variety of God’s creations."  Eww.  I'd rather see them in zoos.


The treasury portion was interesting and the Chapter house created in the round with baroque style ceilings and a floor inspired by a famous artist whose name eludes me.  From there we saw one of the treasury rooms - the final room - that contained some of the most precious items - crowns, crosses and other beautiful things that intrigued the girls so much that, I suspect, one may have touched the glass - or banged it.  All I know is that a horribly high pitched alarm went off and didn't stop until our heads were sufficiently ringing.  Kirk had seen Luci quite close.  We grabbed hands and scurried out.  It was time to go anyway.

Wouldn't you know that of all the times to take this trip, we'd choose the time of record rainfall.  Cold, wet, and rainy was our walk home, but we did find a really nice shopping street and a Starbucks that provided our souvenir mug and just the kind of warmth we needed.

Here's hoping our electricity works tonight.  ;)

More Photos:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=191146&id=674507268&l=53d5c3fb0e