Weekend in Seville in Mar 2023: Day 3 – Morning in Seville

By Nige on Mon 20 Mar 2023 at 08:45
Type: Post
Story: Weekend in Seville in Mar 2023
Tags: Seville | Spain | Weekends

I was awake at 4 am, and it was a tad chilly in the room, having turned on the aircon last night. I dozed a bit longer whilst Vick snored her head off.

We were both awake by 6:30 and I offered to go downstairs to try to secure some fresh milk so that I could make some coffee.

It was a Krupps coffee machine and the coffee generated was half decent. The coffee cups supplied in the room only held about a mouthful of coffee!

We were in breakfast at 8am. We needed to be out of the hotel by about 8:30am so that we would avoid being late for our train to Cordoba, which was due to leave at 9:12am.

Andrew and Sam joined us at breakfast, and as a result of a variety of ailments, decided they wouldn’t be travelling with us today.

After another tremendous breakfast, we left the hotel at a tad after 8:30am and followed Google maps directions to get us to the station. It was pretty chilly along the way, but we expected it would warm up nicely later on.

At the station our train was due to leave from platform 7.

There were ticket checks at the top of the escalator, a queue at a security scanner at the bottom of the escalator and a final ticket scan at a ticket kiosk before being able to access the platform.

The Spanish were taking security seriously.

We left the station on time, but it wasn’t long before we were at a standstill. Then we were chugging along at a very low speed.

Unfortunately, there were no announcements as to the reason for the hold up.

We arrived about 15 mins late, which is odd for a European train. They are renowned for their timeliness. Not on this occasion.

Out of the train station and we set our sat nav to the Mesquita via Starbucks, which was roughly on the way. Being on our own today, we felt we needed to make use of that freedom.

It was still chilly in the shade but lovely in the sun. We walked through the new town, which was a typical shopping fest of a place.

Starbucks was fine, but they tried to short change me again. I got them to top me up properly this time.

The streets surrounding the Mezquita were quite busy with people milling around.

There were a number of tour groups that were gathering, waiting to head into the Mezquita, but we snook ahead of them. Never a good idea to follow a big group into an attraction. You always get stuck!

The main gate into the Mezquita was surprisingly quite when we arrived at around 10:30am.

The sun was starting to warm us up, so we stood and soaked it all in for a few mins. We were stood in a large courtyard with trees, just in front of the Mezquita.

At this point, we were looking forward to seeing what the Mezquita had to offer.

There was a small queue for buying tickets and there was an audio guide available as well, which we didn’t bother with on this occasion.

Entry cost 13 EUR. We could have bought the tickets on line, but there’s an additional 5 EUR service charge on top. Access to the tower would have been a further 5 EUR.

We couldn’t purchase tickets to go up the tower. The earliest tickets for the tower were at 3pm – too late for us. We expected to be on our way back to Seville by then.

We collected tickets for 10:30 to enter the Mesquita so we headed straight for the entry door.

Inside was a huge space – absolutely massive. Quite impressive as well. The red arches were a highlight.

The Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba is officially known by its ecclesiastical name of Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption and is the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Córdoba dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. 

Due to its status as a former mosque, it is also known as the Mezquita and as the Great Mosque of Córdoba.

See Wikipedia for more details about the Mezquita.

Apparently, the Great Mosque was constructed on the orders of Abd al-Rahman I in 785.

The mosque was converted to a cathedral in 1236 when Córdoba was captured by the Christian forces of Castile during the Reconquista.

The structure underwent a major building project in the 16th century; inserting a new Renaissance cathedral nave and transept into the center of the building.

Hence, why it is referred to as being a cathedral in a mosque.

It is a truly impressive building and one worthy of a visit to take in the grandeur.

Amazing colourful patterns were being projected onto the walls from sunlight streaming through the windows. Tremendous.

We wandered around taking in the amazing views. However, other than one or two specific areas of interest, it was all broadly the same wherever we walked.

Follow the whole story here: Weekend in Seville in Mar 2023