If anything they have made it more beautiful than we remembered. The tree lined streets and plazas are cool and shaded in the heat of the day. The main avenue has been turned into a pedestrian area with only the tram running down the middle to dodge. It winds and twist but its length is broken up with a sprinkling of plazas where you can sit beneath the green and purple canopy of jacarandas and orange trees before your next sojourn. Running off this main artery is a matrix of cross streets and parallel avenues to explore at your leisure.
The street level shopfronts are all new and a mix on contemporary designs but above that the blend of spanish colonial and moorish architecture that distinguishes Andalusian cities in general and Seville in particular is alive and living in the 21st Century. The whitewash, the earthy colour pallet, the wrought iron balconies, the brilliant colours and designs of the ceramic tile surrounds that accentuate a window here, a doorway there and a balcony there, are a wonder to behold.
Then you get to the old part of town around the Moorish Alcazar. Here the streets are narrow and labyrinthine. There is no Minotaur at the centre but you could certainly use some of Ariadne's string. The colours of the plazas and avenues are gone. Here in the narrow alleys there are cobbled greys at your feet, then washed whites to the rooftops interrupted only by the solid browns of doors and shutters and above that vivid blue Mediterranean sky.
The Minotaur's relations reside down the road aways at Plaza del Toro – the bull ring. Yes they still have Bull Fights here in Spain despite the bleating of PETA and the usual suspects. When are theses Bozos going to learn some evolutionary theory. Humans haven't spent all this evolving to end up eating tofu and mung beans and drinking wheat grass. Honestly have you ever met a healthy looking vegan, most are emaciated scarecrows whose friends call them “Rattles” because of the number of vitamin supplement pill they take.
We are camped in a Aire, a very special Aire. It's a marina on the banks of the Quadalquiver River. A little gated community that welcomes motorhomers. The apartments overlooking our little spot are typically Spanish but cast your eyes in the opposite direction and you could be excused for thinking you were on the banks of the Murray River. The chirping of sparrows and native birds, the brown river slowly meandering by and the ever present gum trees lining the river banks make this place homely and special. There's even an outside dunny, how much more Aussie can you get. The Port of Gelves deserves a pat on the back for this place.
Well its time to sign off for now. We head for Cadiz next, the 'real' home of Odysseus.
Homer got it right, History got it wrong.
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