We allowed ourselves a little lie in and it was just after 9.00 am when we were eating breakfast. The day’s plan was to explore Santa Cruz, the former Jewish quarter of the medieval city. This district contains many of the older churches as well as the massive gothic cathedral. It was crowded along the narrow streets but nonetheless interesting. Horse drawn carriages waited in the main cathedral square to take tourists for rides in their polished black coaches.
We settled down for coffees and watched people, horses and trams pass along in front of us. Another walk alongside the river then a day time visit to the ‘Metropol Parasol’. to see if it looked any better in daylight than when we viewed it a few evenings ago. It really wasn’t to our taste and seemed totally out of place in a city filled to the brim with so much architectural splendour. A sign on the Parasol informed us that the structure had been built to create shade and to make the square more comfortable, sheltered from the intense summer heat.
I really thought it would have looked much better, and would have been far cheaper, to have planted some trees to provide shade, but the Parasol is there now, for everyone to see and have their own opinions about.
Our evening was spent on the streets of the old town watching the Semana Santa (Holy Week) parade for the final time. It was even more crowded with all eyes on the church members wearing their strange, tall pointed hoods with eye slits, carrying candles and crosses, not to mention the large passion play edifices they somehow managed to hold on their shoulders and slowly work their way along the narrow streets of Seville.
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