Hello and welcome to another adventure with the Findlaters as we make our way through the south of Spain on a 10 day road trip.
In this blog we are in Seville for a day and a half. We have been using Bla Bla Cars to get between cities and AirBnB for our accommodation.
If you're just tuning in now, our trip so far has been London to Madrid, Madrid to Cordoba and now Cordoba to Seville. Now that the Graduation ceremony is out of the way in Cordoba, we are on the way to see Seville and start our non-family-based tourism adventures!
Now you are up to speed with everything so lets just get into this blog!
If you look at a map of Seville you can see there there are quite a few things to see and do here, but also that there is quite a bit of distance between the various places.
So we either needed to limit the things that we were going to see and make time to be able to walk everywhere or spend a bit of money and find a quicker way to get around town.
So we took this opportunity to see if we could hire a bike. It seemed that the city was pretty well set up for it and it would save our poor legs all that walking.
***On a side note literally every day of our holidays up until now we were walking around 10-15km per day.
Well the story is that I have never been on a tandem bike and while we are hiring a bike why not see if they have a tandem bike? It would be so nice, a great couple activity.. we could look and point at things and actually be able to hear each other.
It was a bad Idea! Turns out Kyran and I are very different people that can not relinquish control of our lives to another person - namely the driver of the bike... Another issue is not being able to work out the weight distribution left to right and front to back... It was hilarious! very dangerous, but hilarious. I learned that Kyran mounts a bike like his knees don't exist and that lesson was learned by a kick in the head as he tried to mount it while I was on the back!
The second attempt at mounting the bike was with me on the front and Kyran on the back. Meaning that he now had the opportunity to impale himself on the bag rack that was on the back! I guess there was a loose hook/wire thing but that was it... Kyran was down for the count!! (If you actually want to see the reaction make sure you check out our video blog! Pretty funny to watch! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7zyFY5lGcs)
There is a photo of the wound further down the blog so if you don't want to see it stop at the end of the Alcazar photos.
So after Kyran's overly dramatic performance we took the tandem bike back to the shop and switched it out for two separate bikes.
We then headed out to see the "Plaza de Espana" and ride through the park and see the different buildings which were there. There was also some street performers in the plaza who were doing some flamenco dancing so that was a cool experience for Kyran to see.
The Plaza itself was a sight to see and the ceramic embellishments were beautiful!
Above: the beautiful mosaic and tile work on the bridges over the little canal/moats. Click the images to expand them.
As the day was getting on and we still had to get to the Cathedral before our tickets to the Alhambra at 4pm, so we started to ride in that direction.
The Cathedral I thought that I had seen as a child when my parents had toured us around but as it turns out they hadn't! I know I have a terrible outlook but once you have seen one our two Catholic Cathedrals they all start to look the same which I know is not fair... Anyway Kyan insisted that he was willing to pay the entry fee to see the cathedral and who am I to deny his curiosity!
So in we went! It was cool and I am glad that we checked it out. The added bonus is that this is where Christopher Columbus is buried. Which I know I would usually give you a little background about the man but this blog is already going to be long enough and I am guessing/hoping that we all learned at least a little but about him at school.
Copy and Past time!
The Cathedral It is the third-largest church in the world as well as the largest Gothic church.
he Gothic section alone has a length of 126 meters, a width of 83 meters and its maximum height in the center of the transept is 37 meters. The total height of the Giralda tower from the ground to the weather vane is 96 meters. Since the world's two largest churches (the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida and St. Peter's Basilica) are not the seats of bishops, Seville Cathedral is still the largest cathedral in the world.
Seville Cathedral was the site of the baptism of Infant Juan of Aragon in 1478, only son of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.
Its royal chapel holds the remains of the city's conqueror Ferdinand III of Castile, his son and heir Alfonso the Wise and their descendant king Pedro el Cruel.
The funerary monuments for cardinals Juan de Cervantes and Pedro González de Mendoza Quiñones are located among its chapels.
Christopher Columbus and his son Diego are also buried in the cathedral.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville_Cathedral)
Ok Photo time!
Below: The Cathedral from afar
The second attempt at mounting the bike was with me on the front and Kyran on the back. Meaning that he now had the opportunity to impale himself on the bag rack that was on the back! I guess there was a loose hook/wire thing but that was it... Kyran was down for the count!! (If you actually want to see the reaction make sure you check out our video blog! Pretty funny to watch! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7zyFY5lGcs)
There is a photo of the wound further down the blog so if you don't want to see it stop at the end of the Alcazar photos.
So after Kyran's overly dramatic performance we took the tandem bike back to the shop and switched it out for two separate bikes.We then headed out to see the "Plaza de Espana" and ride through the park and see the different buildings which were there. There was also some street performers in the plaza who were doing some flamenco dancing so that was a cool experience for Kyran to see.
The Plaza itself was a sight to see and the ceramic embellishments were beautiful!
Above: the beautiful mosaic and tile work on the bridges over the little canal/moats. Click the images to expand them.
As the day was getting on and we still had to get to the Cathedral before our tickets to the Alhambra at 4pm, so we started to ride in that direction.
The Cathedral I thought that I had seen as a child when my parents had toured us around but as it turns out they hadn't! I know I have a terrible outlook but once you have seen one our two Catholic Cathedrals they all start to look the same which I know is not fair... Anyway Kyan insisted that he was willing to pay the entry fee to see the cathedral and who am I to deny his curiosity!
So in we went! It was cool and I am glad that we checked it out. The added bonus is that this is where Christopher Columbus is buried. Which I know I would usually give you a little background about the man but this blog is already going to be long enough and I am guessing/hoping that we all learned at least a little but about him at school.
Copy and Past time!
The Cathedral It is the third-largest church in the world as well as the largest Gothic church.
he Gothic section alone has a length of 126 meters, a width of 83 meters and its maximum height in the center of the transept is 37 meters. The total height of the Giralda tower from the ground to the weather vane is 96 meters. Since the world's two largest churches (the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida and St. Peter's Basilica) are not the seats of bishops, Seville Cathedral is still the largest cathedral in the world.
Seville Cathedral was the site of the baptism of Infant Juan of Aragon in 1478, only son of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.
Its royal chapel holds the remains of the city's conqueror Ferdinand III of Castile, his son and heir Alfonso the Wise and their descendant king Pedro el Cruel.
The funerary monuments for cardinals Juan de Cervantes and Pedro González de Mendoza Quiñones are located among its chapels.
Christopher Columbus and his son Diego are also buried in the cathedral.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville_Cathedral)
Ok Photo time!
Below: The Cathedral from afar
Above: The Cathedral from the garden just as you exit it
Above Left: The outside of the Cathedral where we were queueing to get in
Above Right:This is a photo of Christopher Colomus the rapist murder of south America
Below: Me standing beside one of the columns in the cathedral for scale! They were massive and very high again if you want to see more of the impressiveness of the Cathedral check out out video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7zyFY5lGcs)
Below: Some of the photos that were taken inside the Cathedral
The following photos are of the tomb of Christopher Columbus - And I must say that it is one of if not the most elaborate tombs I have ever seen!
OK well I feel that we should probably leave it there with the cathedral and move on to the Real Alcazar or we will never get through this blog.
Here is a quick little Copy and Paste about the Palace:
The upper levels of the Alcázar are still used by the royal family as their official residence in Seville, and are administered by the Patrimonio Nacional. It is the oldest royal palace still in use in Europe, and was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along with the adjoining Seville Cathedral and the General Archive of the Indies.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alc%C3%A1zar_of_Seville)
So now that you get why it is impressive lets go through the photos and you can see for yourself!
Below: Some of the weird art work!
We didn't have too much time to spend in the gardens as we were so tired from the day's activities as well as hungry and our butts were very sore from the bike riding!!
We did stop briefly for Kyran to "lick his wounds" he kept touching it so much I should have got him one of those dog cones. He bled through multiple band-aids.
Well the wound takes us now to the next part of our journey and the next blog where we had to try to get Kyran a tetanus shot as neither him or his mother could remember if or when he had his last one!
Well that is it for this Blog! I hope that you enjoyed reading it, I leave you now with a photo that we took of two taxis parked - This type of parking is common in Spain!
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