Seville

After Lisbon, we had our last sea day. My luck in the casino turned, and I won over $400. Well, I actually was up about $800, but one of the things I need to learn is quitting when I am ahead. By the time I realized the table had gone cold, I was lucky to leave the table up by $400.

The next day, we docked in Cadiz, Spain. We actually got on a bus and went to Seville. This city is absolutely stunning, and I learned on this tour the reason why streets in so many towns in that era are narrow and winding. I had always assumed that it was because they were designed for foot traffic and didn’t want to bother with wide, straight streets. That isn’t the case- they did it because it was more difficult for raiders on horseback to ride down the street. The absence of 90 degree intersections was because winding streets also facilitated the ocean breeze blowing through the town. Another factoid was poor people didn’t live near the beach because pirates and other ships would raid the waterfront. Add to that the fact that no one really swam in the ocean until after 1800, and no one with money wanted to be near the ocean.

Seville, like many towns on the Iberian peninsula, was heavily influenced by the Moors, who weren’t kicked out of the area until the time of Columbus. The Moors brought a lot of advanced mathematics, archeology, science, and education to Europe, which along with the Renaissance begun in Italy, helped in ending the “dark ages” of Medieval Europe. Check out some of the sights of Seville.

The following pictures are from the Palace:

One thing that annoyed me was when some of our fellow American tourists saw the brotherhoods for Holy Week, the first comment was “OOOh, the Klan.” By the end of this trip, I gained an understanding of why so many in Europe think that Americans are uneducated swine.

Seville was an absolutely beautiful city, and there were many examples of both Moorish and Renaissance art and architecture. I really enjoyed this tour, even though I didn’t see a single barber.