Catedral de Sevilla: Week 1 / Day 4 / Jan 14

Posted January 14, 2019 1 Comment by davehartsough

Sevilla, Spain: Having wrapped things up at the Alcazar we headed across the street to the Cathedral (they really are basically across the street from each other). Catedral de Sevilla is the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world. And, much as the Alcazar is not for you if you do not like geometric tile patterns, if you do not like ornate Christian iconography, you had better stay out of Catedral de Sevilla. It is huge, it has gold everywhere, and it has more nooks and crannies than you can imagine. The main chamber of the Cathedral is massive (I guess that makes sense, being the largest in the world and all). The crowds were fairly sparse and, to my mind, this makes it an overall more pleasant viewing experience than more famous cathedrals such as Notre Dame. Show below are the entrance, main altar, and various side chapels.

The overall scale of the Cathedral is hard to convey in these pictures. However, in an attempt to do so, below are two pictures of the main organ (Hartsoughs included for scale):

Located on one of the arms of the cross that defines the Cathedral’s basic layout is the tomb of Christopher Columbus. I believe he is entombed in the lower portion, not in the casket that the statues are carrying, but that was not really made very clear – so who knows.

Much like other cathedrals, there was a large tower that could be climbed. However, rather than a painful series of stairs, this one had a pleasant set of ramps (really, if you want to see a good cathedral with small crowds, easy access, and not a lot of effort, skip Notre Dame and come here instead, or maybe Segovia, that one is pretty cool too). There were 35 ramps in all that ended in the bell tower.

The views of the city are quite nice from up there and really look very different than down below (shocking, I know, who would have thought things might look different from up high). The whiteness of all of the buildings is not at all apparent at street level. Shown in the last picture is a view of the old bull fighting arena.

As we were leaving the cathedral we discovered that our ticket also entitled us to entrance at Iglesia de El Salvdor (located conveniently across from our apartment). Although we had passed on it earlier (we are cheap), now that it was free, we decided to have a look around. Although much smaller, it was still pretty darn ornate inside.