Sevilla

(Note: There should have been a post before this about a mini camino that I did called the Senda del Poeta, but my camera wasn't functioning that weekend so I may be stealing some pictures from my friends who did it with me in order to post about it in the future)

But never fear the awesomeness that was sevilla makes up for my not so chronological posting skills. This post and the following one, for Cordoba, were for a whirlwind weekend that I went on with some of my friends from my program.

We only spent about a day in Sevilla but it was definitely a well spent day: we started with the fine arts museum which was really special. Lot's of work by spanish artists and many of which being from the renaissance and baroque periods- always a win in my book. My friend Maddie and I successfully salivated over the majority of the works in this museum- so if you find yourself in Sevilla this would definitely be a worthwhile stop.

The other big stop for us in Sevilla kind of blew my mind. And it's because of this that I will be subjecting you, dear reader, to an art history lecture. The cathedral in Sevilla is big. And I don't mean Texas big. I mean this thing is freakin ginormous. Just how ginormous is that? let me explain: 3rd largest church in Europe- 2 centimeters smaller than the vatican, and the largest gothic structure :IN. THE. WORLD. Now for a person who fell in love with gothic architecture, this was kind of a dream come true for me. When you enter this church, through a little passageway at the entrance, you're going to feel miniscule. Now, why is that important? Well, the idea behind gothic architecture is that God is above in heaven, and the architecture is aiming to reach upwards towards the heavens as a way of creating this holy aura, like insinuating His presence through architecture. So what you're getting are enormously tall ceilings, elongated structures, and a sense of airiness in the structure of the building. So in case you were wondering, at least for me anyway, I'm of the mindset that the architect got his point across.

Upon First seeing the cathedral

Quite the welcome

just a small side altar

truly fantastic work in the arches of the main naive

The choir

Not such a great photo but this is the main altar which is truly out of this world

typically not one to take photos of paintings, but because it's Goya and it's in this amazing  gothic frame I had to put it on here

Again a very bad photo but this is the silver altar of to the side

a better shot of the really impressively tall gothic arches

There are tons of additional little rooms all over this church- look at that relief work on those two center columns!

From behind the main altar

So the other interesting things about this cathedral are that it is supposed to have the remains of Christopher Columbus. After a series of tests within the past 10 years on the remains though, they've pretty much concluded that it's not Columbus, but maybe one of his children. Any way about it- the tomb for him was awfully impressive.

The tomb of  (a) "Columbus"

The other interesting thing about this cathedral is that the tower that is attached to it gives you a very neat view of the city. And according to my professor who i talked to about my trip- who I'd like to believe, but in reality may have been pulling my leg- has a ramp to the top as opposed to a set of stairs, which he claimed was so that folks could take there horses up to the top...the jury is still out on that one.

View from the tower