More Sevilla
Trip Start
May 12, 2009
1
7
52
Trip End
May 12, 2009
Seville,
Andalusia,
Spain and Canary Islands
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Today we toured the Cathedral. It is very big - apparently the biggest in the world, according to the handy posting of a Certificate from the Guinnes Book of World Records in the church.
It is of course big - like indoor football field big. It covers enough area to play a legal game of CFL football, including endzones. It is probably high enough so that field goals would not hit the cieling. The gigantic forrest of pilars might present a problem to even the most gifted quarterback though.
Aside from big it is gaudy. Tons of gold, lots of carving, statuary all over the place. Gold, gold and more gold. Sometimes you have silver plated with gold. Sometimes the gold is used as backdrop for all manner of precious stones. So there is just lots of it.
Then you have artifacts. Bones of saints? Got `em by the crateful. Bits of the True Cross? Got that too, right by the bones of the saints.
Oh and did I mention the actual bones of Christopher Columbus? Its right there in the nave - apparently the only thing that has been DNA tested for authenticity. They tested the contents of his coffin a few years ago, compared it to the DNA of his descendants - and they are the real thing.
After seeing all of this overblown gaudyness, I can understand the extreme reaction of my iconoclast ancestors. Turf all that crap - and who made you Pope anyway, they said. It must have taken some guts to turn their backs on all that fancy stuff and worship in ordinary buildings with ordinary guys leading the service and no decoration of any kind. Those 16th century Anabaptists must have serious and dangerous radicals.
Then we climbed the bell tower of the Cathedral - all 330 feet of it. It has an interesting history. The Muslim Moors built it over 1000 years ago, as a minueret for the adjoining mosque. They used Roman stones for the base of the tower. You can still read Latin script on some of the stones.
Then the Catholics conquered the area, knocked down the mosque, but used the minueret as a bell tower for the fresh new cathedral they built there. When the top collapsed in the 1300`s, the Catholics built a new top, and mounted a reallly big and heavy statue on top, call Our Lady of Religious Superiority or something like that.
We climbed this 1000 year-old tower this morning. It still appears to be in perfect shape. It has great views from the top, as it is illegal to build anything taller than it in the city.
About Spanish food: It is dull. I thought that it would be something like Mexican food, but it is not. Apparently the spicy quality of Mexican food in entirely of aboriginal origin.
Spanish cuisine is dull. They really really like ham, usually in smoked or cured - not cooked - form. At the grocery store you will see rows of complete hams - including hoofs. They buy ham by the truckload.
They follow that up with dull white bread, not at all up to French standards. They like beans and potato salad and lots of olive oil. The potato salad is really good. It is difficult to get enough veggies around here.
So in terms of food, the Mexicans seem to have improved on it a great deal. French cuisine as we found out, is endlessly exciting and varied, fresh and tasty all the time. That cannot be said about Spain. Maybe it is too hot to cook.
So today we hope to fetch our Igor from Fiat Sevilla, and continue on southwest.
Comments
Hi from the Lees
Awesome, love your comments on your excursions.
All I can say about back here in Alberta is that your fish is still alive.