Port 67 Seville, Spain

by Ed · May 11, 2022

Buenos dias, one more time!

Very early in the morning on May 6th, 2022 we entered the river Guadalquivir, picking up our pilot in the dark at 5:30 AM, and heading up the narrow waterway.

We spent most of the morning passing quiet farmlands. Flat! Flat! Flat! It was a long way to anything resembling a hill.

Fishing is a significant way of life on the river. The boats were amazingly tricked out to make the best of this career.

Small cities were few, but dense.

Mid-morning we were joined by a couple of tug boats. They tied on to help us navigate the narrowing river, guiding us right at a fork in the river, then into a channel to enter a lock. This portion of the river runs through the center of town while the main river at that fork goes around the west side of the city.

The tall structure is a drawbridge for a major highway! The lock gate is the blue and yellow structure and it slides into place.

The lock changes our water depth by only a foot today.

After we exit the other lock gate closes and the road drawbridge drops back into place. The bridge that is still vertical is a railroad.

Nearing Seville, we pass under the Five Century bridge, built in 1992 as part of a World Expo they hosted to celebrate the 500 years since Columbus discovered America!

Our dock is not in town – we cannot pass through the small drawbridges of Puenta de las Delicias to get to the formal cruise terminal that was designed for river boats. But we can see the great Cathedral of Seville straight ahead! Our pier is ahead on the right.

We are in Seville for two days. There is a festival going on that we will attend both days. We have two different tours, one on each day, that will visit similar sites, so I am not going to present a linear timeline. We’ll start with art and artwork!

Now that we’re here it’s time for a language lesson! Seville is pronounced in the Spanish way, with a double “l” pronounced as a “y”, so it is properly pronounced “seh-vee-yah”.

This soaring sculpture is located in a circle near the ship and is a monument to the port and the town of Seville.

We wander through a large park on our way to the town (heading to a Hard Rock Cafe store!) and find this statue wrapped around a cypress tree! This is a monument to poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. It appears Cupid is responsible for making the ladies swoon at Gustavo’s feet! But it must really be the poetry!

This beautiful fountain is the Hispalis Fountain. It was originally built for the 1929 Exposition.

Between the Hispalis Fountain and the bridge across the Guadalquivir River is the Fountain to the Poets of Generation 27 – a group of poets who arose between 1923 and 1927.

Magellan is very popular in this area, although more awareness is coming out that there are others who deserve equal, or more, credit for their roles in making Magellan so successful!

We stopped by the bull fighting ring! A bullfight is about to start! The crane has a news cameraman on board. This ring hosts about 20 bullfights each year.

This statue faces the bull ring and immortalizes Pepe Luis Vasquez as a bullfighter. But he was also a humitarian, and there is a movie out about him. The movie is named after him.

This statue next to the bull ring honors Curro Romero, a bulfighter who’s career started in 1954 and lasted 42 years!

Walking through town near the bullring we pass this fan shop making hundreds of beautiful hand-painted fans!

The art continues in strange ways! We found this snail climbing up the side of this building…

…and these burros and cacti hanging out in front of a shop!

This statue might be Artemis with her bow, but we couldn’t get close enough to see a plaque. The area was fenced off for a fireworks show planned for the end of the Feria de Abril, or April Fair..

Now we’ll switch from a focus on art to a focus on the architecture of Seville!

We can see this from the ship! This beautiful building was once a church, but now appears to be an art conservatory and dance academy. The exterior is in need of a little work, but it is still lovely!

This is the Torre del Oro, the Golden Tower. It was once a defenive tower for the city, but is now a Naval Museum.

OK, I couldn’t resist. Not architectural, but I had to laugh at this play on Mister Miyago from “The Karate Kid”!

This amazing edifice is the Palace of San Telmo (Palacio de San Telmo). This was originally a nautical school but was chosen by the Duke of Montpensier to be his palace. He and his wife upgraded the school to become their Palace.

This small and lovely tower is the Costurero de la Reina – it is on the grounds of the Palace of San Telmo and started as a guard tower. It became known as the Queen’s Sewing Room when King Alfonso XII’s wife, Merceditas, fell ill and came to this tower to sew as a distraction to her illness.

This is the entrance to the courtyard of the Cathedral of Seville. This is an amazing entrance reflecting the Moorish past of the region! (We’ll look at the cathedral itself a little later. You get a peek at it through the arch below.)

This is the Palace Arozbispal, sharing the square with the tower of the Cathedral of Seville.

This beautiful building is on the Plaza del Salvador. There is no sign of life in the buidling anymore.

This is the City Hall in the Plaza de San Francisco. They ran out of money and couldn’t finish decorating the building! You can see the right end of the building is plain, while the left end is very ornate!

This cute building is an historical building called the Building of the Adriatic (Edificia de la Adriatica).

On our way to and from a bridge we were able to walk through this lovely walkway a couple of times!

One of our excursions was called “Over the Rooftops” and brought us to this site. This is a must-see if you ever come to Seville!

This is both art and architecture! It is the world’s largest wood sculpture! The locals call it “The Mushroom”.

It is constructed with 3,500 pieces of Finnish wood, totalling almost 3 million pounds in weight! Some of the individual pieces are immense!

Beneath the structure is a complete market! They have beautiful fruits and vegetables…

…seafood of all types!…

…including snails! OK, these are land snails. But apparently Spaniards love their snails!

Regular meats are also available…

…including bull from the bullfights! Toro is a prized beef product since it is only available after a bullfight, and there are only 20 bullfights a year, each involving the death of six bulls.

There are also ancient ruins under the La Setas. These were found when preparing the area for construction. They had to preseve them, so they created the Antiquarium to preserve them for display! You can’t see it well, but the floor at the upper left is a fabulous tiled floor similar to what I showed you at Ephesus and Nora and other Roman sites.

The views of the Mushroom from the top is incredible! There are 250 meters of walkway around the top!

And the views from up here are breathtaking! Here to the south we see the Cathedral of Seville in the distance, the Church of Salvador in the middle, and the Church of the Annunciation on the far right.

Looking the other direction to north/northwest we see the site of the 1992 Exposition, with an Ariane rocket on the left, a sky needle, and some other structures maintained on the site. The slanting structure on the right is the bridge Puente de Alamillo designed by, you probably guessed it!!, Santiago Calatrava! This is the same guy who’s work we saw in Valencia at the City of Art and Science!

The walkway finally wraps up at, ta-da!, the souvenir shop! Did Disney start that?

I mentioned the Church of Salvador earlier. Actually, this is the Collegiate Church of the Divine Savior (Iglesia Colegial del Divino Salvador).

Tourist trick – buy a Combined ticket here to see this church as well as the Cathedral! You’ll see both for the same price as the Cathedral alone, and there is no line at this church! You may wait up to an hour in line at the Cathedral!

The interior is stunning! The beautifully decorated columns reach to the sky! The ornate gold-leafed altars are overdone, but exquisite nonetheless!

The combined ticket only lets you in at the San Cristobal door. News flash – there is no line at that door!

We arrive at the Cathedral of Seville! Let’s look at the exterior first. Inside the courtyard (remember I showed you the gate earlier?) we can see the front of the cathedral between the orange trees in the square, as well as the tower.

This is the third largest cathedral in the world! Vatican City has the first largest, and London has the second.

The tower has some history. It is two towers in one – a Moorish tower inside, and the Christian tower outside. The path to ring the bells was made into a ramp so the clergyman could ride a horse up and down for the 4 times a day he had to go to the top to ring the bells!

Pope John Paul II visited here four times and is commemorated in this statue. In 1993, at the end of the 45th International Eucharistic Cnference, he held a mass for over 600,000 Catholics who had travelled here from all over Spain and parts of Europe.

This is the San Cristobal gate! It has a replica of the Giraldillo statue weather vane that sits atop the tower.

Just another look at the cathedral, this time the back side! At the top of the tower you can see that Giraldillo statue and weather vane! OK, let’s go inside! (A reminder, the door below is not the door we go in.)

All I can say is Wow! The altar is straight ahead, a football field away! In between is a statue, burial spot, a fence, and the choir, and who knows what else?!

Beside the choir are these organ pipes. The woodwork underneath and surrouding them is phenomenal!

Then, looking into the choir we see more organ pipes! Crazy! I would love to hear this organ play in here! It has to be amazing!

Here is another one of the resting places of Christopher Columbus! It is reported they have 4 ounces of his bones and ashes in this mausoleum. Remember that Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic has the Faro do Colon that has a part of Columbus’ remains?

Time to sneak in my gratuitous photo of Insignia! No, it’s not time to go home yet. We still have a party to attend!

Welcome to the Feria de Abril, the April Fair! This event starts two weeks after Easter, and lasts for one full week!

This palace is unique to every fair. There is a design competition, and the winning design goes into production about three months ahead of the event to be done in time! After the fair it is torn down, and a new one will be built next year!

Here’s our proof we were really here!

Streetlights all over town were upgraded for the fair!

The streets were lined with “casetas” which are little cafes set up by families. They have to reserve their spot then contract to have the tents built up. They have food catered in for the entire week! Some have DJs or live bands playing in them! And a carnival with rides is set up in the distance!

There are two stars of the festival! The first are the horses! There are 1, 2, 4, and 5 horse carriages! (I never saw a 3 or 6 horse train, but 5 surprised me!)

And here’s the 5!

Here are my favorite horses! These blacks had wooly hooves and long flowing tails like the clydesdales! Beautiful to watch them trot! I looked for them all over, but this was the only time we saw them.

The second stars of the fair are the women with their beautiful dresses! Some rode horse sidesaddle.

Some not. But the horses were treated well, allowed to drink from a trough at the entrance.

Then there are the women on foot. OK, not the best picture of her, but the dress is killer!

Here’s a collage of other dresses I found in my photos.

And a few more. Oops, the last was a bachelor party!

Young girls got in the act, not so ornate, but nice! Not everyone felt the need to dress up.

At night, the palace and streets light up! We can’t see the street for the trees, but the palace looks great! A few bulbs are burned out, but this has been going on since last Saturday!