The bus picks me up at 0730. It’s still dark. By dawn, we are given a “coffee break” on our way to Seville and I gratefully stumble off the bus.
“Café negro, por favor,” I request. The barista chuckles to her associate and I overhear the words ‘café negro.’ The two grin and glance in my direction.
“Como se dice en Espanol,” I inquire, “café sin leche?”
“Café solo.” Okay. I request a double solo.
Our guide, Anabelle, gives us 20 minutes, but when I return to the parking lot, there are ten buses all looking the same and with no familiar faces onboard. Earlier I had met a group of eight 20-somethings –each girl lovelier than the next – all visiting from New York. Fortunately, one of my New Yorkers sounds the alarm that I’ve been left behind and the bus returns. Anabelle chastises me; it’s a mistake I don’t intend to repeat!
When we reach the center of the ancient part of Sevilla, we are serenaded through narrow, medieval-sized passages by two guitarists. We are charmed. One of our New Yorkers – perhaps the very damsel who saved me from the bus terminal – is so taken with their music that she begins to dance along the passageway. The singers quickly take her queue and launch into a jaunty rendition of The Macarena. (This number has long been a favorite of dare-I-say thousands of men who have been left on the sidelines to watch their dates or spouses drunkenly bump into one another on the dance floor while attempting to execute its intricate set of moves.) No one bumps into anyone on this occasion, however, and this author shows her delight with ample tips for each gent.
We’re told there were two significant international events that occurred in Seville – one in 1929 and the other in 1992. Our first stop at the Plaza de Espana was from the earlier and recreates the magnificent renaissance and neoclassical architecture we’ll find throughout the tour. Built for the Iberoamerican Exhibition of 1929, we are awed within its semicircle. Later, we take a barge ride on the Guadalquivir past the site of the 1992 World Exposition with its monuments to Europe’s first space rocket and the first Spanish-built satellite.
But the most important events in the city probably started in 200 B.C. when the city began to grow in the Jewish quarter through which we are now passing on our way to the Santa Metropolitana Y Patriarcal Iglesia Catedral De Sevilla (or, let’s just say, the Cathedra)l. The church’s bell tower, the Giralda, was converted from what had formerly been a Moslem minaret. At the top of its 97 meters is a giant bronze weathervane representing ‘Faith Victorious,’ with which the city fathers were apparently much enthralled. They had a duplicate made of the sculpture and planted in front of the church. We all stand and admire it, compliantly. But the real show is inside.
Seville’s Cathedral is the third largest in the world and has a super impressive collection of paintings, sculptures, friezes and stained glass, as well as both Gothic and Baroque ornamentation. In addition to ogling artistic creations from the Baroque to Renaissance eras, you can visit the remains of Christopher Columbus. Our guide is passionately and firmly, 100 percent, convinced that Seville’s Columbus remains are the genuine article. It seems that interlopers in the Dominican Republic are laying claim to a duplicate set and she’s not buying it. She has quite a bit to say about DNA testing to prove she’s right. But unfortunately, I miss most of it because she transitions from English into Spanish. Plus, the pace of Spanish speaking I’ve experienced here in Andalucia is turbo-charged. So I’ll just take her word for it that this is Chris’ final resting place.
On the road back, Anabelle shares with me that she is a little distracted because her husband lost his job on Friday. (That explains to me how I almost got left at the bus depot.) The couple lives in Granada where she says the unemployment rate is 30 percent. She thinks they may have better luck for him to find work in Malaga. I can understand how stress about survival can impose itself over every part of your mind.
I’m a little in awe of this young woman whose English, French, German and Spanish have all sounded so effortless. I figure someone of her talent must be married to a pretty accomplished guy. If they’re having troubles, what does that indicate for the region? We’ll explore what’s happening to the economy in Grenada and in all European tourist regions more in the future.
Shown above: One of two towers framing the 1929 Plaza de Espana like bookends.
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