Sevilla’s Christmas Splendor

The 2^nd weekend in December is a 4 day weekend.  December 6^th celebrates the signing of Spain's constitution and the 8^th, the feast of the annunciation.  A national holiday which is also a religious holiday seems odd to those who hail from a country with separation of church and state. Frankly, it also seems a little odd in Spain because while much of the country is Catholic, few attend services. Catholicism has become more of a cultural identity than a religious one.

Never ones to let a 4-day weekend go to waste, we booked a bus to Sevilla. My first impression of the city was not positive, but fortunately it improved with each experience. Most of bus stations we’ve passed through are quite new and surprisingly clean. Sevilla’s station was neither. The bathrooms were the disgusting and to add insult to injury, they were coin operated. It’s a rare moment when a bus port-a- john trumps a normal bathroom. 

As in Rhonda, we booked an “apart hotel”.  Despite its 2 star rating, it was an awesome apartment in a great location.  Tom had another “I wish I had stayed in a place as nice as this for the past 3 months” experience. These short term rentals are more economical than traditional hotels, are furnished with more character and offer a lot of space. On the downside, they lack services such as a front desk, room service, gym etc.  Our apartment was named after its street, Siete Revueltas, which means 7 turns. It was a narrow zigzagging almost alley sized-street closed to cars. The kids of course counted them and yes there were exactly 7 “turns”.

The city was brilliantly lit for Christmas. Each street has a specific style of lighting and I read that over 120 streets are illuminated. We saw at least 10 different variations. Since it was a holiday weekend, the streets were unbelievably crowded far into the night. Most stores close at 8:30, but Christmas markets are set up throughout the city and stay open quite late. Many corners had vendors selling roasted chestnuts. They used wood so the smoke filled the sky creating street scenes out of a Victorian Christmas card. In one plaza, lights and pictures were projected onto the side of an entire building.

The apartment was just steps away from the Metropol Parasol or as the locals call it “The Mushrooms” These are the world’s largest wooden sculpture with a museum of Roman ruins (found while constructing the site) on the basement floor, a food market on the main floor, and retail space on the upper floors. Tourists pay a modest fee to walk along the top. The view of the city is wonderful, especially at night. Zoe and I went up on Friday when all of the churches were celebrating the annunciation. When the bells struck the 9 o’clock hour from all quarters of the city and the lights shone through the haze of chestnut vendors, it was a surreal experience.

At the market, we bought stone crab claws and our favorite Spanish cheese queso Mahon curado. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the vendor slice jamon iberico (huge hogs that eat only acorns) for a queue of grandmas that was 20 deep. This was the first market where we’ve seen vendors selling rabbits, pheasant, quail and ducks gutted but with fur and feather intact. JT is not a fan of markets. He can’t quite overcome his aversion to the smell of fresh fish and meat. He hung around on the periphery while we shopped, and tried breathing through his neck gator—and given the state of that I am surprised he could smell anything else!

We really enjoyed touring the Mushrooms, but our favorite spot was the Plaza Espana. Every city in Spain has a plaza with this name, but in our humble opinion, this was the most spectacular. Built for the 1929 World’s Fair, the brick structure is beautiful in and of itself. But to make it even more special the building is embellished with ceramics. The roofs, the walls, the lamp posts, the fence surrounding the water were all decorated with hand painted ceramic tiles or constructed of ceramic itself. Built in a semicircular shape it has a moat with 5 bridges. At the center stands a huge fountain. Each province of Spain has a ceramic mural depicting a scene from when it became a province. We rented a row boat and the kids took turns rowing us. After our last experience, we skipped the rowing together step and they both did quite well on their own.

On Sunday, we strolled along the Rio Guadalquiver to the Torre de Oro. The 12 sided tower was used as a watchtower by the Moors. While there we hiked up the 112 steps for spectacular view of the cathedral’s flying buttresses. We also toured its small naval museum. Before having lunch, we took a quick walk through the Cathedral. It’s another impressive structure which holds the title of the world’s largest Gothic cathedral and 4^th largest church in the World. It’s bell tower, known as the Giralda, is one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. Even more interesting, it’s where the remains of Christopher Colombus are interred. After lunch we took the bus back to Granada for the kids final week of school.