Sevilla, Spain: We got a bit of a late start today after the late night soccer match yesterday (and staying up watching Patriots’ postgame coverage). To start off the day we headed over to Reales Alcázares de Sevilla – a royal palace. This palace is the oldest, continuously used royal palace in Europe. The plot of land where it sits has been occupied since the 8th Century BC. Since that time it has been the site of a church built by the Visigoths, a fortress built by the Muslim Caliphate, and finally the palace built for King Peter following the Christian conquest of Sevilla. In almost all cases, the new builders destroyed the prior structures, but did leave some remnants and borrowed design / architectural elements of prior eras. The entire first level is currently unoccupied and the many rooms display intricate patterns and tile work on the ceilings, walls, and floors.

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As you can see, the geometric tile patterns are quite detailed and the structure itself is quite beautiful with the recurring arch patterns. Shown below is a particularly interesting ceiling from one of the rooms.

Closer inspection of some of the tiles shows a bit more than what is seen at a distance.

Outside were gardens that had a number of different plants and trees. Unfortunately, due to the time of year, hardly any of them were blooming. The gardens were quite nice even so.

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Two final thoughts on the Alcazar – the first is that due to how intricate all of the ceilings are a lot of time is spent with head tilted back staring at the ceiling. This can cause a sore neck pretty quickly. However, the bigger danger is that spending all of that time looking at the ceiling means that little or no time is spent looking at the floor. Shown below is the fountain (small, yet deep enough to go up to my ankle) that I managed to step right in the middle of while walking and staring at the ceiling.

I’ll also note that I did this as a tour guide was standing next to the fountain talking to his group. It made him pause in mid-sentence to see what I had done. To improve the situation, this was the first room we visited in the entire palace. So, I spent the rest of the day squishing around with my dripping wet right foot. Attentive readers will note that this is my second liquid / foot incident. I wonder what will be next.

The other thing to note on the Alcazar is that it is still the official palace for the royal family when in Sevilla. Because of this, the upper floor is furnished and partially used when they are in the city. However, photographs are prohibited on this level. I highly recommend paying the extra 4 Euros to have the upper floor tour included in your visit. With that we are off to the Sevilla Cathedral for the remainder of the day.

Uncategorized palace Sevilla