El Reino de Espana - melting in Sevilla

Competing in the Amazing Race demands some athleticism. Mary runs marathons and I can plod along for hours....and honestly this was our downfall in Sevilla. It was sooo hot and we walked sooo far each day getting sooo lost when honestly we should have sprung for cabs all the time. (Not that cabs always helped. At least twice we got dropped off at the wrong place and still had to walk further.)

But let's start at the beginning. Bright and shiny early Mary and I hopped on the train to Sevilla and upon arriving somehow navigated our way to the hotel. (I seem to recall taking a bus. Could that be true?) While checking in, I turned to see Mary being hugged by a tall red-head who turned out to be my friend Cody. Cody served in Peace Corps Bolivia and had the poor fortune to be in my Spanish class for 11 weeks. He is now in grad school in Europe and agreed to spend a couple of days with us.

For some bizarre reason we decided to cram all of the Seville sights into one day...and started off by ducking into a church to check out the relics (bits of dead saints).

Finally we made it to the Cathedral which, according to the Guinness Book of World Records certificate inside, is the largest in the world. I take nothing at face value so I googled it; it's the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and third largest cathedral cathedral.

I have a bad habit of attaching myself to tour groups and eavesdropping on all the exclusive juicy historical details so I was pleased to note that Cody had the same habit. As an added bonus he also speaks French which allowed us more range in our tour group joining.
Unfortunately all he understood from the description of the altar pieces were a bunch of numbers which we assumed to be dates.

The cathedral has a bell tower or giralda that you can climb.

It does not have stairs but rather a 36 story ramp. (For those wondering: they were numbered. I didn't count the floors.) Many of the floors have windows which provide welcome opportunities to rest and check out the drainage system.

Each individual bell was named after a different saint but to my disappointment they were controlled by an electronic timer.

Throughout the trip I was interested to note what aspects of Spanish culture made their way over to the Americas. Hmmm.

After a lunch of overpriced sandwiches, instead of resting like normal people we went to the royal palace and gardens. Evidently the royals still live there although probably not in the summer. If you are insane enough to go in July (like us), there is a poorly calibrated fountain in the palace that sprays water on passersby. Totally worth the admission.

I took thousands of bad pictures that do nothing to show off the scope and scale of the palace... And we left when Mary got the hiccups and I was laughing too hard at her distress to be able to breathe.

Still to come: the boring museums of Sevilla which aren't highlighted in tourist guides for a reason.