April 18th and 19th: Seville, Sevilla!!

We spent two full days in Seville, both of them starting off similarly with a late morning, light tapas for breakfast and simply the best coffee I have ever had! I am not a coffee lover, let alone a connoisseur, but I do like to have an odd cuppa now and then.. and the super milky manchado was exactly the morning booster I needed on a vacation. I am not sure if manchado is universally liked though, because I did catch waitresses cringing involuntarily each time I ordered a second cup! :)

Each of the mornings included a bit of meandering around the cobblestone streets, peeking surreptitiously into private courtyards and stopping to applaud street musicians providing the background score to our random wanderings – it almost felt like we were in a travel show, just that the sounds, tastes and sights were a lot more tangible and heart-warming than the best shows could ever be. The charm of resting your aching legs on the steps of a bright pink church in a quiet plaza (de San ildefonso), the approving tingle of your palate when savoring your first Gambas Ajillo, the revulsion of finding an ugly, modernistic structure (at Plaza de Encarnacion) in the midst of colorful churches and pretty minarets, the indecision of not knowing the tipping culture (are we supposed to tip at all? is 1 euro too much? too little?), the surprise of running into a procession depicting Jesus with his disciples and rushing to put your tripod in place before they march away, the disappointment of seeing the sun getting eclipsed by storm clouds, the excitement of building slow, broken Spanish sentences and actually being understood, the smell of sangria floating in the air as you are tapping your foot  flamenco style in a packed tabalao, the joy of mixing and matching ceramic tiles in a small Triana shop till you come up with the right set to take back home – how could an arm chair traveler even imagine what all this would feel like?

Where the streets have no name.. but a guitar to show the way?

Cute little Nazareno

Two buildings that deserve special mention in Seville are the cathedral and the Alcazar, which are also, not surprisingly, the symbols of the city. The cathedral by day looked just as imposing and magnificent, if not more, as it did the previous evening. There was a predictably long queue to get in but the interiors did more than ample justice to the expectations that had built up while we were lined up outside. Just the altar itself was so massive and overwhelming, I could imagine hope being restored here as people knelt before it, showing the same devotion now as they have probably been doing for centuries. I am an atheist and I was so moved, just imagine what wonders this place would endow to someone with even a little bit of faith! At the same time, the Muslim influence in the architecture, the minarets, sloping arched roofs as well as the outer embellishments on the Giralda, served as reminders of how religion has been used as a political tool here for ages – the cathedral, after all, was constructed on the ruins of an ancient Moorish mosque in the 1400s.

From the top of the Giralda

The Alcazar was also a great showcase of the Moorish architecture of the region, with some very intricate tile, brick and wood work adorning the entire expanse of this very lavish palace. Thanks again to Lonely Planet, we were even able to identify some typical mudejar and mozarabic patterns set amidst vivid splashes of color.

The roof at one of the halls in the Alcazar

Another interesting theme that we noticed in Seville, and which carried on throughout our Andalusian tryst, was how much effort residents had put in to preserve the aesthetics and history of the region in their houses and shops. Of course, there are some very beautiful cathedrals, mosques and plazas which serve as the major cultural draws of Andalusia, but for us, the ceramic tiled family courtyards, earthy pots and sculptures at the entrance and colorful paintings adorning side walls were just as remarkable in how they symbolized the culture and the outlook of the Andalusians. A city as large as Seville still has a modern, drab side to it as you move away from the barrios that make the historical center, but as we hit the road over the next few days, we visited so many villages and towns that seemed to exist completely in harmony with their Moorish and Christian ancestry --  history in Andalusia was not something you read about in a book and locked away in a corner of your mind, it was a way of life, ingrained into its people and celebrated quietly, implicitly and almost nonchalantly.  

Tiles outside a house in Triana