Seville Cathedral

While in Barcelona we made the mistake of visiting Sagrada Familia before any other local churches. Once we had seen that insane beauty it was unfair for any of the local gothic cathedrals to make much of an impression on Megan. It's been a few days though and today we went to Seville Cathedral which is the 3rd largest cathedral in the world and the largest gothic cathedral. It definitely made an impression on us both.

I don't know what is is about cathedrals, especially considering that I'm not a very religious person at all, but they give me goose bumps every time, no matter how small or big. This one took my breath away. It is so tall and lofty. Standing there and thinking about what must have gone into building it and how it must of made the people of the times feel to see it - it's mind boggling.

The cloisters are so unique and beautiful, you can see the arabic influence more there. They have this intricate design of narrow little streams built into the ground (they are dry now) that you have to walk around and this grid of small trees that are in that super green/yellow stage of budding thanks to the spring weather. I have great pictures of it all on my camera.

We walked the 32 ramps up to the adjoining tower and got a birds eye view of Seville with it's river and bull fighting ring. From up high we could see down on the homes in the wealthier part of town and were able to see families dressed for feria taking pictures together. I was especially excited to get such a great view of the flying buttresses. Thought Seville Cathedral has something like 22 chapels lining the walls and not a lot of stained glass so they really didn't take full advantage of the lighting possibilities that the open architecture could have offered.

This was Burt & Billie's first trip to Seville so naturally they had to come see some of the sites with us! Christopher Columbus's tomb is at the cathedral, the only photo I took of it on my phone was starring B&B. :)

After the cathedral the festive air around us made it impossible to focus on any other 'tourist' spots so we found a cafe and settled in to watch the parade of costumes that was starting to trickle by....