Friday morning turned out to be one of my favorite days spent in this city so far, I believe - not that I'm keeping score. We didn’t stay out very late on Thursday night, so it was easy to get up in the morning and begin exploring, which is the easiest way to stumble upon things that will exceed your expectations and surprise you.
After our usual breakfast of bread and jam, we went to walk around the Parka Maria Luisa, which is in front of the Plaza de Espana and stretches out over several blocks. The trees themselves are beautiful, but after you begin walking you stumble upon fountains, terraces, ponds, bridges, gazebos, lion statues, giant hedges, walkways, trellises, it really is one of the most gorgeous places I’ve ever seen.
The park ends at the Plaza de America, which is so much cooler than anything I’ve seen in America. The Plaza has three big museums in it, and we wanted to check their operating hours. The museums themselves look like palaces, and in the middle of the plaza is a place just full of birds.
The gardens/park really made me appreciate being in Spain. The park was just gorgeous and well maintained and it seemed like so much effort went into it. Speaking of putting effort into things, the rest of the day was spent touring the Cathedral and Giralda (the big cathedral tower).
The tour for the cathedral is not that expensive, but we get in for free because we’re technically residents of Sevilla (That's a really awesome sentence to say).
The Cathedral is the 3rd largest gothic cathedral in the world, behind St. Peter and St. Paul according to surface area, but as far as volume goes - its the biggest. It is just magnificent inside. The detail given to everything from the outside architecture to the tiniest carving on the altar is just amazing.
The carvings on the gold altar depict Jesus’s life, and this carving was the artists’ life work.
Also in the Cathedral is the tomb of Christopher Columbus where they believe they have his remains.
The cathedral tower has 34 “flights” of a steep inclined ramp to get to the top, so make sure you wear comfortable shoes when you go. It wasn’t that much of a struggle, but I didn’t even consider the fact that the tower wouldn’t have an elevator, which makes me sound really American, I realize.
At the top of the tower is a full and gorgeous view of the city. Standing up there really made me realize I was in Spain, the houses just looked like quintessential Spanish houses, and you could see far out into the countryside, with a lot of notable landmarks in between.
It’s starting to warm up a bit in the day here, which is really really welcome. We’ve been having various stews for lunch because it’s been “cold” outside, so today we finally got something different. We had a roasted chicken/potato combination in a cast iron skillet, covered in olive oil and lemon juice (at least those were the ingredients I heard as she was rattling off how she made it). It was really delicious. The rest of the afternoon was spent in typical Spanish fashion – siestas and café con leches.
I could get used to this kind of day
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