Seville, the first roman city of Spain

Summer at Seville is very hot that sometimes I wonder why people like to go to this town during this season. So hot that walking on the street during a sunny day makes every step very difficult. Normally I get used to go to the south of Spain, especially at Granada, during the spring time or after september more for the temperature than for the weather but this time, due to some personal reasons, I went during summer time. In fact my origin destination was Huelva and taking advantage of this trip, I made a stop at Seville. The city is the capital of the Autonomous Region of Andalusia and it

got this wonderful title “very noble, very loyal, very heroic, unconquered and Marian city of Seville”. True, the city is very beautiful and it has the most impressive spain square that I saw until now.

The “plaza españa” (spain square) is the only common square that you may find in every spanish city/town, they share all the same name, the only difference is the architecture but it was not the first place I went. Parking the car, after the isabel II bridge, on the cristobal colon avenue under some trees, I walked, along the Guadalquivir river, until the gold tower.

It was really a nice walk because on the right side, the walkway is bordered by trees, very good to protect against the heat of the sun and on the left side, the river with its winds although it didn’t bring some cool breeze !!!

The first known civilization was called Tartessic and lived in Spal (meaning low land) during the 4th century BC. After the conquest by the carthaginians, the romans named it Hispalis and very close, the first roman city in Spain, Italica, was built during the year 206-205 BC. In this period, the city was also known as Isbilia, which is now called, as you have guess, Seville.

To go to the top of the tower, a fee has to pay and believing that there is nothing very interesting to see, I preferred to walk away and to reach the famous and impressive cathedral but before that, I went to lunch. Near to it, people can take the tourist carriage, the tourist bus and/or the tourist boat, a good and quick way to visit the most important points of the city. I didn’t do it because I just had the afternoon so preferring to focus on the cathedral, the maria luisa park and the españa square.

Around the tower, there are places to eat something and to not complicate too much, I picked one located on the corner of the almirante lobo street, the food was good and the service was a little slow because there was only one waitress for lot of people. After filling my stomach, time to use my feet and to walk more or less 10 minutes to reach my destination.

The cathedral is very impressive and watching it, I was thinking that now I understood why it is the biggest gothic christian cathedral of the world and declared in 1987 by UNESCO as world heritage and in 2010 as exceptional universal value without counting that in 2007, it was selected by spanish people as the 12 treasures of Spain.

Near the asuncion door, I discovered a little alley which leads to a nice inner square with a fountain called cabildo. One of the funny things was that all horses stayed in the shadow, under a big tree, waiting that someone would like to do a carriage tour. Making the tour of the building, I crossed a gipsy girl asking some minutes of my time, trying to skip her but no way so after taking my hand, put some little branches and telling beautiful words, she asked some money, something that I refused and walked away without any persistence.

The maria luisa park is very nice with many romantic areas and pools and from there, the access to the españa square. The area is also called dove park because from the america square, no one can´t miss the white layer, above all when the doves are gathered on the ground and/or on the trees. If you are visiting the city with your boyfriend/girlfriend, it is really worth to take a walk, you can sit on a bench where the roof is covered with plants, walk under an alley with a flower roof…

Like said before, the plaza espana is the most impressive that I could see until now, and I visited a lot of spanish cities/towns. The square has been built from 1914 by Aníbal González and in 1926, he quitted the project without ending it and it was Vicente Traver who finished it in 1928, ready for the inauguration of the 1929 Iberia American exposition.

Yes you read well, 14 years were needed to end it !!! The final result is a big semielliptical form symbolizing the embrace of Spain and its former colonies and facing to the river, it shows the way to America. The structure is made of bricks and the decorations with ceramics, wrought and embossed iron, carved marble and wood (particularly the roof parts).

There are 4 bridges representing the 4 former kingdoms of Spain (Castilla, León, Navarra and Aragón), 24 imperial eagles with the shield of his majesty Carlos V and in the center, a big fountain but what really impressed me were the 48 ceramic benches. Each one represents the 48 spanish provinces in alphabetical order decorated with the shield, the map and the bust of famous persons of each area.

After this impressive discovery, time to go back for the car and to drive to my final destination, Huelva, a city in the south coast before the moonset !!! For more pictures, check my photo website Concept RT.