Last Stop - Sevilla

Our last stop on our Spanish tour was Sevilla, Spain. We packed up early Thursday morning and took the fast train down to Sevilla – about a 3 hour ride. Weather was ok … on Friday evening, we took the train back to Madrid to fly back to the States. Me to work and Lauri to play with the granddaughter – Camryn.

Seville is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville, Spain. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of 7 metres (23 ft) above sea level. The inhabitants of the city are known as sevillanos (feminine form: sevillanas) or hispalenses, following the Roman name of the city, Hispalis.

Seville is the fourth largest city of Spain with a municipal population of about 703,000 as of 2011, and a metropolitan population (including satellite towns) of about 1.2 million, making it the 31st most populous municipality in the European Union. Its Old Town is one of the three largest in Europe along with Venice and Genoa (covering almost four square kilometers), which includes three UNESCO World Heritage Sites (the Alcázar palace complex, the Cathedral and the General Archive of the Indies). The Seville harbor, located about 80 km from the Atlantic Ocean, is the only river port in Spain.
The Torre del Oro (Tower of Gold) next to the Guadalquivir

Seville was founded as the Roman city of Hispalis. In al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) the city was first the seat of a cora, or territory, of the Caliphate of Córdoba, then made capital of the Taifa, which was incorporated into the Christian Kingdom of Castile under Ferdinand III. After the discovery of the Americas, Seville became one of the economic centres of the Spanish Empire as its port monopolised the trans-oceanic trade and the Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) wielded its power, opening a Golden Age of arts and letters. It was the place of departure of the first circumnavigation of the Earth. Coinciding with the Baroque period of European history, the 17th century in Seville represented the most brilliant flowering of the city's culture; then began a gradual economic and demographic decline as navigation of the Guadalquivir River became increasingly difficult until finally the trade monopoly and its institutions were transferred to Cádiz.

The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See (Spanish: Catedral de Santa María de la Sede), better known as Seville Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Seville (Andalusia, Spain). It is the largest Gothic cathedral and the third-largest church in the world. After its completion in the early 16th century, Seville Cathedral supplanted Hagia Sophia as the largest cathedral in the world, a title the Byzantine church had held for nearly a thousand years. The cathedral also serves as the burial site of Christopher Columbus.[2] The Archbishop's Palace is located on the northeastern side of the cathedral. The cathedral was built to demonstrate Seville's wealth, as it had become a major trading center in the years after the Reconquista in 1248. In July 1401 it was decided to build a new temple, as the ancient Muslim mosque was in bad shape after a 1356 earthquake. According to the oral tradition of Seville, the decision of members of the chapter was: "Let a church so beautiful and so great that those who see it built will think we were mad". According to the minutes of that day, the new church should be: "a work such as good, which like no other." Construction began in 1402; it continued until 1506. Church workers gave half their salaries to pay for architects, builders and other expenses. Five years after construction ended, in 1511, the dome collapsed and work on the cathedral re-commenced. The dome again collapsed in 1888, and work was still being performed on the dome until at least 1903.[3] The 1888 collapse occurred due to an earthquake and resulted in the destruction of "every precious object below" the dome at that time. The interior has the longest nave in Spain. Its central nave rises to a height of 42 metres and is lavishly decorated, with a large quantity of gold evident. In the main body of the cathedral, only the great boxlike structure of the choir stands out, filling the central portion of the nave. It is also dominated by a vast Gothic retablo of carved scenes from the life of Christ. The altarpiece was the lifetime work of a single craftsman, Pierre Dancart.