travelswithalice

August 21, 2019

Seville, August 2019

We arrive in Seville to an elaborate royal palace, the Alfonso XIII.

We’re to discover later, at a walking tour in which our hotel is one of the highlights, that King Alfonso refused to stay in the customary royal residence, the Alcázar. He reportedly had this palace built for him so he could have the privacy needed to engage in his preferred hobby: pornography.

Today though, we enjoy the more sedate use of the palace as a hotel. And lunch in the courtyard is as dignified as can be.

Later, from our bedroom window, I watch the near full moon brighten up the western sky, a brilliant Jupiter at its side.

Barrio Santa Cruz is in the old Jewish quarter.

We once stayed at a hotel here, so we look in to see if it has changed much since. Hotel Amadeus seems to have been frozen in time; it looks just as it did back in 2007. The hushed rooms with musical instruments everywhere, string instruments parked casually on the floor. Several violins are mounted on walls. In a small practice studio off the wrought-iron gated front door, an upright piano has a sheet music open.

We go up to the rooftop to see if we can find the attic room we stayed in before. There’s a bar and a plunge pool. We’re told our old room must’ve been in the adjoining building.

We watch the sun go down behind the towers and spires.

Hotel Amadeus is on Calle Fabiola. It’s here that we now find a small flamenco theatre, Sala Fabiola, as authentic and honest and protective of the art as anyone can hope to find.

Saturday, we go on a walking tour with White Umbrella Tours. Our guide is José, a charming well-informed young Sevillano, an English and History of Arts graduate from the humanities-heavy University of Seville.

It’s an enjoyable leisurely walk towards the cooler end of the day through Seville’s historic centre. We start in Plaza Virgen de los Reyes where we are surrounded by three UNESCO listed heritage sites: Alcázar, Archivo de Indias, and the Cathedral.

We’re looking straight out towards Giralda Tower, the cathedral’s bell tower which at a height of 104 meters dominates the city skyline.

On the other side of the square is the Alcázar. It traces the city’s history through eleven centuries with the evolution of its architecture and decorative style from Mudéjar, to Gothic, to Renaissance, to Baroque.

Seville is a photographer’s or cinematographer’s dream. Indelible scenes from opera, movies, and TV were either made here, shot here, or inspired by places found here: Carmen, Kingdom of Heaven, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, and Game of Thrones, to name a few.

The headquarters of University of Seville used to be the Fabrica Real de Tabacos.

It’s here where Bizet’s Carmen meets and seduces the soldier Don José whom she promptly drops for a famous bullfighter. In the end Don José stabs her to death outside the bullring.

Outside Seville’s Maestranza Bullring, I ask our tour guide how people here today feel about bullfighting. José would rather not voice an opinion.

Legend tells us that Seville was founded by Hercules. His image guards the entrance to the Town Hall, an elaborately decorated building executed in the Plateresque style of the Spanish Renaissance.

So how did the faces of Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner end up on the facade of this 16th c. building? And why does our guide himself, to this day, refuse to go through its entrance archway?

The tour ends in quiet splendour at the magnificent Plaza de España, built for the 1929 Ibero-American Expo. Designed as the Andalucian Pavilion in a Regionalist mix of Mudéjar, Renaissance, and Art Deco styles, it is grandiose in scale and presentation.

It’s a bit over the top and kitschy, but I believe art on this grand scale has a very particular purpose: to tell a story, to glorify, or to frighten. Think Sagrada Familia or Sistine Chapel. Plaza de España was built to impress: to show off Spain’s superiority in industry and craft.

On its inside curve, the crescent-shaped brick building features 48 alcoves, one for each province, individually decorated with lavishly painted ceramic tiles called azulejos. Each alcove has inviting tiled benches and a matched pair of cubbyholes for books.