Andalusia - III. Sevilla

From Cádiz we traveled on to Sevilla, the only place on this trip we had visited before. We were there briefly in 2005 (with Alan) when Pat was on an IMF mission to Spain. Much of our time was spent revisiting old favorites (not all of which Pat had had time to see): the cathedral and Giralda, the Barrio de Santa Cruz, and the Real Alcázar.

Most of our first afternoon we spent wandering through the Barrio de Santa Cruz, originally the Jewish quarter that later was favored by Spanish nobility after the Jews were expelled. It is an area of narrow streets and pleasant squares and cafes.

The Plaza Dona Elvira.


And the Plaza los Venerables.












The next day we toured the cathedral and Real Alcázar. The cathedral's most obvious characteristic is its size.
As all the guidebooks say, when the chapter decided in 1401 to build a new cathedral to replace the converted mosque they had been using (Sevilla was captured by the Christian king in 1248), their announced objective was to "build a cathedral so immense that everyone, on beholding it, will take us for madmen." They succeeded - only St. Peter's and St. Paul's are larger.

Inside one feels the intent to stun with immensity and display. I wouldn't call this cathedral warm or lovable, but there certainly are impressive features.

The retable of the central Capilla Major is 60 feet wide by 91 feet high, with 45 highly detailed groupings of figures, and very gold.
The retable, which took nearly 100 years to complete, was carved of walnut and other woods, and then covered with gold leaf. Each grouping, and framing, is crowded with figures and detail.

Carved wood choir stalls combine a variety of styles -- gothic, plateresque, and mudejar or moorish (especially in the geometric decorative patterns at the top).
Impressively high, elaborate vaulting at the crossing of the nave and transept differs from that in the rest of the cathedral because it was redone when the original dome collapsed five years after the cathedral was completed.
But perhaps the cathedral's best known feature was part of the earlier mosque. La Giralda, now the cathedral bell tower, was built in the 12th century as the minaret of the mosque (with new top stories and bells added in the 16th century).


It is a landmark visible throughout Sevilla.











When we were in Morroco in late 2006 we saw two similar minarets built at about the same time.


The unfinished Hassan Tower in Rabat.














The Koutoubia in Marrakesh.















The other survivor from the old Sevilla mosque is the Patio de los Naranjos (here seen from the top of La Giralda), which now adjoins the cathedral, originally was the ablutions area of the mosque. A similar patio adjoins the great mosque in Córdoba . Unfortunately this did not live up to memory as the fountains and intersecting channels that carried water across the plaza were dry.

Near the cathedral is the Real Alcázar, a complex of royal palaces and gardens. Little is left of the 12th century palace built here by the Moors. The most impressive palace in the complex was built in 1362, at almost exactly the same time as the Nasrid Palaces of the Alhambra. And the style is quite similar to that of the Alhambra.

Courtyards around fountains.
Mudejar arches between rooms decorated with geometric motifs and Arabic script.
Domed and carved ceilings.
From one perspective this palace's similarity to the Nasrid Palaces of the Alhambra is not surprising, since it was built at about the same time, and largely by artisans brought from Granada. But from another it is, since the Nasrid Palaces were built for the Moorish Nasrid princes while this in the Real Alcázar was built for the Christian King Pedro I.

We had enjoyed the Real Alcázar in 2005, but wondered if this time it would be disappointing after seeing the Alhambra. It was not.

There was still more to enjoy in the Real Alcázar: the extensive gardens....

I wish I had taken more pictures of the many flowers, pools and fountains, and tiled benches of the gardens. I did at least get this of what looked like fancy dandelions.









And a beautiful bath below the palace.
In between sightseeing, we enjoyed our meals, several times ordering that Sevilla standard, pescado frito, selections of lightly breaded, fried calamaris, bocquerones (small sardines, eaten whole except for head and tail), pieces of swordfish, etc. Yummy.

Andalusia - II. Ronda to Cadiz

From Granada we drove west to Cádiz, stopping along the way at a some of the pueblos blancos.

Our first stop was Ronda, perched on the sheer cliffs of a gorge cut by the River Tajo.
This strong defensive position was a natural location for a town in earlier times, and Ronda's history goes back at least to Roman times, and perhaps to an earlier Celtic settlement. From the 8th century until 1482 it was a Moorish provincial capital.

We spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering up and down streets of white houses.
Peering into courtyards (in this case of the Convento de Santo Domingo).
Spotting the Palacio del Marqués de Salviatierra.
With its decidedly odd Aztec or Inca details.

The explanation - according to the guide book - is that the family's title derived from the Mexican town of Salvatierra.





Ronda also has a bullring built in the 18th century and is famous as one of the cradles of modern bullfighting - but we didn't spend much time on that.

We continued west, past several other pueblo blanco towns, stopping at Arcos de la Frontiera.

Arcos also is built on a promentory.














When we arrived mid-afternoon the sun was in full force and the town deserted as we climbed the hill to the old town.

We had the narrow streets nearly to ourselves.















Then we drove on to Cádiz, where we were spending the night. Cádiz occupies a narrow spit of land extending into the Atlantic and has a fine harbor to which much of its history is tied. Indeed, it was founded by the Phoenicians, about 1100 BC according to tradition; later it was an important Roman trading port. In 1717 it took over the monopoly of Spanish trade with its American colonies from Sevilla (whose access to the Atlantic was limited when the Rio Guadalquiver silted up). And in 1805 the Spanish-French fleet sailed from Cádiz to defeat at Trafalgar.

In 1596 Cádiz was briefly captured and thoroughly sacked in a raid by English Earl of Essex. This destroyed most traces of ancient and medieval times. The old city retains a set of walls across the neck of land, but otherwise was mostly laid out and built up in the 16th to 18th centuries. The result is an old town beyond the walls of narrow, but often long and straight streets.
There are few remarkable monuments, but many opportunities for pleasant wandering. We especially enjoyed the Plaza de San Francisco.
Where we made dinner of tapas.
There were parks with views of the ocean, and some huge trees.
Promenades along the ocean, which Pat enjoyed.
And views of the small beach in old Cádiz.

Andalucia - I. Granada

We are just back from an eight day trip to Andalusia, visiting the big three - Granada, Sevilla, and Cordoba - and several smaller towns along the way.

The differences between Catalunya and Andalucia were immediately striking. To cite just two, white is the predominant color of Andalusian buildings often accented with ocher, while Catalunya favors dark earth tones of the grotto or cave. Moorish buildings and influences are everywhere in Andalusia, but nearly absent in Catalunya where the Moors presence was quite brief.

Granada was our first stop.

Old Granada is built on two hills facing each other. The Alhambra stretches half-a-mile wide along one of the hills, with the Sierra Nevada mountains as a backdrop.
Granada was the last outpost of the Moors in Spain. By 750 the Moors controlled all of the Iberian peninsula but a strip across the north. The next 740 or so years were the time of the Reconquista, as Christian nobles wrestled control back from Moorish leaders. When Granada surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, the Reconquista of Spain was complete.

Across from the Alhambra lie the white houses on the Albaicín hill, the refuge of the Moorish population after the reconquest of Granada (and the site of the last Moorish rebellion in 1568).
The two hills are separated by a steep valley, through which runs the narrow Darro river.









Our tickets to the Alhambra were for our second day in Granada (timed entrances to the Nasrid palace do sell out -- we had purchased ours several weeks earlier). We spend most of the first day enjoying Albaicín.

One of the best preserved and oldest Arabian bathhouses in Andulusia, which was built in the 11th century.
Its narrow streets of whitewashed houses that wind up and down the Albaicín, often with views of the Alhambra.
Pleasant squares - this is the Pl. San Miguel Bajo.
We stopped at a cafe here for a beer and later returned for dinner. On the recommendation of the owner we ordered lomo en salsa - chunks of pork in a thick, piquant, paprika-laced sauce. He promised that if we didn't like it we wouldn't have to pay. We paid, happily.

The mirador front of San Nicolas, filled with tourists taking their postcard pictures of the Alhambra, informal flamenco performances (contributions welcomed), and various trinkets for sale.
The view of the Alhambra is especially beautiful at sunset: being good tourists, we took our own postcard pictures. The oldest part of the Alhambra, the Alcazaba (citadel), was built in the 13th century and protects the end of the hill overlooking the large fertile valley to the west .
At the other end of the complex are the various palaces. The square towers and unremarkable-looking lower buildings in the front of this picture are the palaces of the Nasrid princes, built in the 14th century; their beauty is interior, not exterior. Behind are those built by Christian kings are their conquest - the solid, square palace of Charles V and further back the pointed tower of the adjoining chapel.

The next day we went to the Alhambra itself - which despite all one has heard manages to exceed anticipation. Pictures, and certainly the ones I took, truly are inadequate - if only because they cannot capture impression of being surrounded by, immersed in remarkable sights

The massive towers of the Alcazaba fortress and horseshoe-arched entry gate.

The stolid massiveness of Charles V's palace is completely incongruous against the highly ornamented Nasrid palaces, but it is nonetheless an impressive Renaissance design with a circular 2-story arcade within the external square.
And exterior stones and decoration that would look right at home in Florence.
But all else is exceeded by the beauty of the Nasrid palaces. There are inner courtyards built around pools and fountains.
Elaborately decorated arches and entries.
Ornamental detailing in sculptured or cut stucco with rhythmic floral and geometric patterns and Arabic script, accented with more geometric designs in azulejos tiling.
Intricately decorated ceilings.
Pavilions set among gardens and pools.
And, as a further treat, the separate "summer palace" of the nearby Generalife set amidst its own extensive gardens.