Seville: The Cathedral and Giralda

The second major stop of the day, the Cathedral, didn't live up to expectations. I guess churches seem similar after a while. This church was built in soaring Gothic style, like Notre Dame. There was tons of open floor space rather than a big central apse. Instead there were lots of little chapels arrayed along the sides. Like the palace, the church had Islamic 'roots', built atop a razed mosque, itself built atop Roman ruins. Though it's harder to see hints of those here. Given a place of prominence is the tomb of Christopher Columbus, who hailed from Seville. One pic from within the Cathedral -- it's not the brightest place for pictures...

We took a winding ramp with 8 1/2 turns up to the top of the Giralda, the bell tower (built atop a minaret). The views of the city were impressive. We could look right down into the terrace of our hotel. Promptly at 1:45, we heard three bells to signify the 3/4 hour.

Wending our way back down the tower and through an orange grove amidst the courtyard, we succumbed to hunger and got the tapas pictured in the first post of the day. Then it was off to the train station...

I'm actually writing this on the high-speed (AVE) train to Barcelona. We're cruising at 300 km/hr. I should have brought a work data card for "testing"! The one disappointment was that we had to pay a 10 euro reservation fee even though we had Spain / Portugal rail passes. It's likely this will mean that the passes will not have been economical.

We get into Barcelona at 9:30pm, so maybe a light dinner at traditional Spanish hours. I'm already feeling tired. Jet lag is easy to combat while running about, but much harder when you're sitting on a train...