Sunday 11.07.2010


Worship Services


Yet another perfect morning when we get up and out today. We are taking a new route for our morning stroll that parallels the Murilla Gardens on our right and a few fountains and major government type buildings on our left. There is a light rail system that runs from the Plaza Espana on one end of “downtown” to Plaza Nueva on the other, a distance of about ¾ mile. It is a fancy looking operation that chugs along at walking speed, and outside of the disabled or decrepit, we can’t imagine who would ride it. Yet another example of spending money for the sake of spending money.

Speaking of which, we have discovered a trio of Starbucks along Avenida de la Constitution and settle in at the first we come to. Our European coffee experience has been mostly good with great flavors involved, but as Americans we will occasionally have a need for quantity, which we find here. We pull up a sidewalk table to watch the busy people come and go and the horse drawn carriages across the street from us as they get their morning tours started.


There is a mass at the Cathedral at noon to take place on the “Altar Mejor” so we’re anxious to see the big operation. The Seville Cathedral, officially Santa Maria del la Sede, is the third largest Church in Europe (St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London are one and two) and the largest in “volume.” We are allowed past the guards as mass attendees and find a smallish area with maybe 30 pews in front of the altar and another 15 on the sides. It seems odd but the configuration of the Cathedral includes dozens of chapels and areas of worship within the whole and they can probably reconfigure if they had huge crowds.


The altar itself is wrapped in a wrought iron floor-to-ceiling grille that limits visibility a bit and is backed by a carved piece that is 65 feet tall (the largest ever made) and took over 60 years to carve. The whole thing is covered in gold leaf and dust, an unusual decorative combination. There are 20 priests and 3 deacons celebrating the mass for about 200 attendees which would seem to be a bit of overkill to the lonely priest in Pine River covering 4 parishes.

We poke around the Cathedral for a while after mass and visit the tomb of Christopher Columbus (maybe). The remains have allegedly been confirmed by DNA testing, a claim that is disputed by some other tomb tenders around the world. It was here that Queen Isabella gave him his cash for the trip to America so that’s as good a reason as any.

As we roam the back streets we come across the museum of the history of Flamenco, the place of worship to this peculiarly Spanish dance. They are having a special 7:00 PM show this evening that is only 45 minutes long that seems just right to us. We pick up tickets and are told to arrive at 6:30 for good seats.


We then work our way back to the back of the cathedral and the sidewalk restaurants along Ave. Mateos Gago where we find a seat in the shade. We share a mixed salad plate (two potato salads, tuna in hard-boiled eggs, stuffed peppers, seafood) and a couple beers, which will be just right to hold us over until dinner. After walking for another hour after lunch (4:00 PM) John is done with postcard shopping and opts for a nap. Mary plugs away for a while before making it back.


We have a cocktail on our rooftop terrace before leaving for the flamenco show. The sun sets over the Cathedral at 6:00 PM sharp which is our cue to get moving. We dilly-dally and after a couple passes of the Theater we go in at about 6:35. It is a pretty small room with a substantial stage surrounded by rows of individual chairs, about 6 deep in front and 3 deep on the sides. We are in the second row on the side, but only a couple feet from the stage. A glass of red wine sets the tone nicely for the show.


There are only four performers, a guitarist, a singer and two dancers, one male and one female. We don’t have much to go by, but we think they are fabulous. The guy on the guitar seems perfect, the singer looks like Tiny Tim but has a haunting vocal quality that fits the genre, and the dancers couldn’t be more dramatic. They do a brief encore after the 45-minute show and leave us wanting more.


We get to the restaurant, Robles, shortly after 8:00 for our 8:30 reservation, and at about 8:15 we are reluctantly led upstairs to the dining room. We are the only ones there and will be for another half hour while the staff stares at us. This is the white tablecloth place that Mary has nixed for the weekend and we have erred dramatically. We get a nice appetizer of ham croquettes, John has a leg of lamb that is so anatomically explicit that we imagine a three-legged lamb hopping around outside, and Mary suffers through one of her egg-cod dishes. Good dinner—wrong place.

We take another long walk after dinner down to and along the river, working our way back to our hotel in a big circle. It was a mostly good day in Seville that would be considered a great day at home.

Today’s Picture: The Seville Cathedral