If it's Monday, it Must be Mudéjar (Part 2)

From Córdoba it was off to Seville, where I had spent about a month while in grad school.  I had lived at the illegal hostal of one Doña Carmela, an elderly sevillana who took guests into her house because she had raised something like 257 children and didn't like having the house empty.  She charged a ridiculously low price for room, board (3 squares a day), and laundry.  Most occupants were academics doing research at the Archivo General de Indias, Spain's archive of documents related to its empire in the Americas.

We did not stay at Doña Carmela's for the following reasons:

1. You are required to eat her food, whether or not you are hungry.  The food is good, and it is served in large quantities.  I gained 10 pounds in the month I lived in her house.  We decided it would be better to avoid this.
2. I was not keen on revisiting her nostalgic musings about how good life was under Franco.
3. She might very well be dead.

Instead, we found a hotel in Doña Carmela's neighborhood, the Barrio de Santa Cruz, the old Jewish quarter near the Cathedral, and an attraction in its own right.  Doña Carmela attempted to teach me to navigate its rabbit warren of streets the way she did, by associating one little plaza with the next according to the interlocking legends that wove them together.  After seeing me arrive from where I had been by what she considered to be entirely the wrong route, she tried to teach me in one afternoon what she had learned over the course of a lifetime.  This did not work.  I thought of Doña Carmela as I struggled to find our hotel after spilling an entire cafe con leche all over my clothes.  

We saw the Cathedral.  Climbed the Giralda.  Visited the Alcázar.  Then we cheated on the rest by taking a hansom carriage ride to the Plaza de España, the University, and the Parque María Luisa.  I've always wanted to like Seville's Cathedral more than I do. It's huge, and it's over the top in many ways, but I don't think it all comes together as something beautiful, like other cathedrals.  See pics here.  The Alcázar - the palace in Seville - was fabulously impressive, as was the Giralda, the minaret of the mosque that was pressed into service as a cathedral spire when they tore the mosque down and replaced it with the cathedral.  But what's really lovely about Seville is the overall effect.  One of the most beautiful cities you can ask for.  

For those of you wondering, by the way, the Alcázar is a great example of mudéjar architecture.  A mudéjar was an Islamic Spaniard who lived under a Christian king.  The name has been extended to refer to the artistic and architectural products of Christian medieval Spain that show heavy Islamicate influence.  I took a whole class on "mudéjar literature."  Bet you wish you could have too!  (Dork)   

The next day we were off to Cádiz, a place I had not visited when I was here in grad school – much to the dismay of that Andalusian professor – for the simple reason that it seemed lame.  You see, Cádiz does not have A-list attractions like other Andalusian cities.  We were only going there because the Semester at Sea ship, the MV Explorer, was docked there, and we had friends on the voyage.  In fact, we had wheedled our way onto the ship for two nights as visitors, and were looking forward to its deeply air-conditioned comfort, and its endless supply of purified water.  

Cádiz, it turns out, is absolutely charming!  The historical part of the city is on the tip of a peninsula, so you end up with the narrow streets and small plazas surrounded on three sides by water, with plenty of opportunities to see the ocean.  Parts of the original walls, fortifications and lookout towers remain, making the whole place feel kind of like old San Juan, Puerto Rico, or like Havana, Cuba.  One of these towers has a camera obscura, a sort of periscope thing that allows you to look out over the city from inside the tower.  We looked and looked for people we knew doing things they would be embarrassed to have us see, but no luck.  See pics of Cádiz here.

The best part about Cádiz was seeing our friends who were on the ship.  These included folks from Charlottesville, a couple Santiago and I had gotten to know on the Enrichment Voyages, and a family that we had shared the Summer '07 voyage with.  I'll leave the details about food and drink to Zoë.

OK.  Enough for now.  Next post, the pueblos blancos, Granada, and the bizarre rest stop on the way back.