AKA Seville, Spain, the capital of Andalucia. It’s been called a bunch of different things. In our mythology we give Hercules the founding rights, the Romans called it Hispalis the Moors called it Ixbilia. Christopher Columbus called it the honey hole (I made that up) but it is where he set sail with the backing of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand to open up trade with the new world (us). Magellan called it home after the Portuguese wouldn’t give him any money to sail. He was pretty happy with that turn of events and sailed down the Guadalquivir River with visions of fame and fortune dancing in his head. In his quest he also wanted to prove a big monster was not going to eat them as they sailed off the ends of the world. Turns out he had much bigger problems than sea monsters.

Enough historical fiction via me. Here is what we did in Seville:

The Cathedral; is the largest church in the world by volume and defines the word Gothic. I walked in the front door and said “Wow!” (how original). The stunning columns supporting the main structure grab your visual and shoot you up to the ceiling.

The Cathedral has so many stunning features it seems silly to try and describe, but here goes. The treasure of the Cathedral is what they call the Capilla Mayor and what I call the main alter. It is all gold and divided into scenes of the life of Christ. There are over 1,000 carved figures. The alter is quite overwhelming, it is the life work of Flemish artist Pieter Dancart.  Amazingly enough they let you get pretty close up and you can feel the holiness of it. I guess that’s the point. Behind the alter is the choir loft and organs, OK I don’t know who gets to belt out a number on those pipes but I’m sure it’s astounding in all ways. As you circle round the side chapels all filled with amazing religious artifacts you finally run into the bones of Christopher

Columbus. The monumental tomb is nothing but fantastic. There are 4 larger than life Religious Centurions carrying his casket. There is a lot of controversy if he is actually in there, recent DNA tests seem to prove it’s really him. It appears he traveled a bit even after his death but ended up here.

And then there is the art. Oh my! Murillo, Goya, Zurbaran.  Come to Seville and check it out.