Even though the Royal Alcázar of Seville was only a couple of hours of our time in the city of Seville, it really deserves its own entry given the number of photos I snapped while touring the palace. Other than the beautiful city itself, there are two main attractions to which tourists flock in Seville: the Alcázar and the Catedral de Sevilla, both of them UNESCO World Heritage Listed sites. We’d seen a lot of fantastic cathedrals across Europe over the prior few months, so opted to continue the royal tour of Spain we started in Madrid with a tour through theAlcázar.
The upper stories of the Alcázar are still occupied by the royal family when they visit Seville and are administered by the Patrimonio Nacional. TheAlcázar was constructed over a period of more than 500 years starting in 913, the structure’s Moorish influences were very evident as we walked into the first main courtyard before entering the Patio de Las Doncellas. In the Royal Palace of Madrid we were all in awe of the silk-covered walls, artworks and chandeliers, all very influenced by British and northern-European artisans over the centuries. TheAlcázar was decidedly different, with a distinct Arabian feel and incredible demonstrations of intricate tile work and wood carvings throughout. Mind boggling to think that each one of the tiles in the patterned walls pictured below was cut and placed individually by masons hundreds of years ago. We felt a little like we were in an Indiana Jones movie as we strolled through the main salóns, especially with all the towering palms outside full of chirping parrots.
The gardens were also very impressive, with examples of English-inspired grounds in the Jardín Inglés to classic Moorish expanses across the Fuente de Neptuno and Jardín Marqués de la Vega Inclán. As we were strolling through the tranquilJardín Inglés, Lisa and I commented that we could imagine royals strolling through the grounds over the years deliberating the issues of their subjects.
The tapestries in the Salón de los Tapices y Capilla were very memorable, their size and attention to detail was like nothing I’d ever seen. I think the last photo below of Max standing in front of one of them gives the best depiction of their size, they were abolsutely immense. We could walk up close to a few of them and inspect them in detail, there must have been millions of individual stitches in each. We were trying to figure out how they would have all been put together without modern manufacturing techniques, boggled the mind.
Stunning and timeless works!