June 28-30: Seville

Legend has it that the builders of Seville’s cathedral wanted people to stand in awe of their creation and think of them as grandiose maniacs. We’ve never seen so many altars dedicated to so many saints in the one place, and each one with at least one statue of the Virgin Mary covered in gold and cradling a naughty-looking baby Jesus. Here is a brief guide to identifying saints in art: the guy with arrows stuck in his body is Sebastian, the girl with the broken spiky wheel is Catherine, the guy with the keys is Peter, and the old guy who looks about a hundred is probably Jerome. It’s a bit like Guess Who (Whatever happened to that game?).

Seville's cathedral at night.

The main altar. Gold!

This is what the T1000 from Terminator 2 would look like if he was pretending to be Mary.

Seville’s other monument is the Alcazar, which is really a smaller and less impressive version of the Alhambra in Granada. It’s another example of mixed Muslim and Christian art: Arabic calligraphy praising Allah alongside Bible verses praising God. For some reason, on this particular day, people who wanted photos taken were asking Vicky, not Limmy, to do the job, which Vicky took as an indicator of superior photographic skill. We also saw a child chasing a large duck.

Who is that little person?

The Alcazar Gardens. And Limmy.

Not a swimming pool, but an ancient cistern. Ugh.

Other fond memories of Seville include:

Vicky having her name written as “China Vicky” on a coffee in Starbucks (it’s not as if there were other Vickys in the café);

Using our headphone splitter in the cathedral, to allow us to pay for and listen to one audioguide simultaneously (Vicky thought it might be illegal so Limmy had to hide it in his pocket, and it was about the size of a cricket bat handle so it really wasn’t hidden at all, which pleased Limmy because he wanted everyone to see the ingenuity of the headphone splitter);

And our last decent Spanish meal, where we gave paella a second chance and were not disappointed, our waiters told Vicky that her book (Lolita) was “magnifico”, and Limmy got so full he was in birth pains.

Not drunk. I look this way normally.

Seville comes alive at night. Literature-loving waiter in foreground.

We concluded our time in Seville by travelling south to Tarifa, the point of departure for ferries to Morocco, and more exotic adventures!