Seville decided to return to the winter weather that it is entirely entitled to put on at this actual winter time of year - so no real surprises there. That, combined with a desire for a relatively peaceful day, led to a slow and quiet day spent in and around the heart of Seville, while not pushing the touristic (as the locals say) events.
First stop was the Castillo de San Jorge (The Castle of Saint Jorge / George - slayer of dragons), the remains of which sit under a market at the southern end of the Isabel II bridge, with a hidden entrance with minimal signage other than "Exposician". This caste's claim to fame is that it was the home of the Spanish Inquisition for nearly 300 years (1481 to 1785) - it would seem that with the current arrangement "the Spanish Inquisition expects nobody!" To add to the mystery, there is very little in any of the tourist information about this little hidden gem. If you can find it, you are rewarded with a fascinating insight into the history and machinations of the Spanish Inquisition, and all for free, on a short walkway through the archaeological remains (after the council pretty well demolished the castle in the early 1800's to build the market - d'oh!
The facility's motto is "A place for reflection" and gives ample room to pause for thought about man's inhumanity to man, particularly in relation to repression, intolerance and fanaticism. A common thread of value judgements, abuse of power, and the defencelessness of victims leading to totalitarian practices that continue to this day; if we don't learn from the past, we will undoubtedly return to more injustice in the future.
A walk along the bank of the Guadalquiver River (the river that runs through Seville - the Great River), brought me to the Parque de Maria Luisa (the Maria Luisa Park), a large park on the edge of the city centre, reinforcing the view that the Spanish like their parks. At the northern end of the park lies Plaza de Espana (Spain Square) the site of the 1929 Expo - the Exposition of Iberia-America; this was timed to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Columbus finding America (again, assuming that the continents of North and South America were somehow lost), and included the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their outposts, particularly in South America. Now, I was wondering about why the South American contingent might want to celebrate the event, until you realise that with some 42 million Aztecs and Incas wiped out, most of the current crop of South Americans are probably of Iberian extraction anyway, so of course they have something to celebrate!
The Plaza de España has been used as a filming location, including scenes for the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia. The building was used as a location in the Star Wars movie series — Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
(1999) and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) — in which it featured in exterior shots of the City of Theed on the Planet Naboo. It's not surprising that it's been used in movies really, as the building is a stylistic mixture of Renaissance Revival in Spanish architecture Art Deco within Neo-Mudéjar styles, as I'm sure you will be able to tell from the photos!
The main pavilion is still standing in a large semi-circle with a plaza in front; today the building is used for offices, however I did find the Spanish military museum on the ground floor (first floor over here), a free museum, which closes at 1pm, so missed out on that, arriving at 1:15pm. These days the forecourt is a popular spot for tourists, with a multitude of horse-drawn carriages (fairly quiet on a wet day like today though), and row-boats for hire to potter about the water-course) again, fairly quiet today). There are also 52 individual tiled mosaics around the foot of the building, each one celebrating a different city or town in Spain; clearly a favoured spot for visiting Spaniards to have their photo taken with the relevant mosaic. The four bridges across the moat (where you can go boating - I assume it's more popular on a nice, sunny day) represent the four ancient kingdom of Spain and their unification - just don't tell the Basque, or for that matter the Catalonians!
The route walking back through the city was through the Barrio Judea (Jewish Quarter) - a bit of a rabbit-warren where I managed to get turned around once (only once, thankfully), but found my way out again, and back via the Alamede de Hercules for some more wonderful tapas (including some Paella - yum) at only 2.50 euros a plate - good value if you know where to go (like the locals do). And that was, mercifully, that for the day, and for Seville - tomorrow is the short ride to Cordoba.
Due to a total lack of photographic interest, all of todays photos are from the Plaza de Esapna; and these are almost all of the photos taken today!