To Seville

One of our major goals for this campaign is to visit Seville's April Feria once more...one of the world's more exciting and colorful social gatherings, and something we enjoyed immensely in 2013. So on May 1st we undertook the long drive (280 miles) from Salamanca to Seville, stopping for lunch by the Rio Tajo...just upstream from the Great Roman Bridge at Alcantara, one of the highlights of my continuing classical education...and then at Malpartida, near Caceres, to look at some rocks, and birds, and then some pigs.

Old structure...with storks..near Malpartida

We were looking for the Monumento Natural Los Barruecos;
we like weird rocks

But first, storks

Spain has a serious population growth problem

And so the government is doing everything it can to encourage
delivery of babies

Establishing stork refuges like this one

Lower left, largest braille notice ever...

Weird rocks, Los Barruecos, across the pond

The rocks are all over the countryside, extending all the way
to Alcantara

Bluebonnets?

Oak/acorn/pig country

Seriously, we saw some of the big black/brown oinkers as we
whizzed by...bellota!

Salamanca's Old Cathedral

Well, not that old. In a circumstance like this, one hopes for a Romanesque old building, a Gothic new building, and wonderful opportunities for comparison. As I observed earlier, however, the Gothic memo got to Spain quite late--the Moors held this part of Spain when it might have been Romanesque--and both these buildings are mostly Gothic, although the old one sports much of the old style, particularly in painting and sculpture. It's always exciting to view the older bits, especially if they are quite old.

In 2013, they turned us away and we never saw the old
cathedral

The painting, everywhere, conspicuously old

And the capitals

Very worn stone here and there

Definitely Romanesque murals

Divinity in his Mandorla thing; muy
Romanesque

Knave view...glorious Romanesque darkness, heaviness;
never-mind the pointy arches

Mostly weird capitals

Altar and above

And a not quite traditional Judgement; how come, I ask, those
of us going to Hell don't get to wear clothes? And is this a bad
thing, really?

Crossing

Starboard transept, great murals (port transept was lopped off
for the new cathedral)

Cathedral flooring...all graves...or prayer carpets?

St. Andrew...in the cloister now

Mostly tombs and chapels

And old capitals

In the museum

Nearly funny face

Dyslectic Medieval alphabet

VIP warrior/knight buried here

Love the painting

Hmmmm; she's turned toward him; he's turned away...

New and old

Salamanca's New Cathedral

Well, more or less new Gothic cathedral. Late Gothic. 14th-15th centuries. What is so interesting about Salamanca's cathedral(s) is that, unlike the standard model, they didn't build the new one on top of the old one. Rather, they built it adjacent to the old one, leaving the latter, older one, wonderfully intact (except for severing its port transept). You can thus see both on the same tickets, a 2fer. We toured the new one, quickly, in 2013, but never saw the old one. See next post.

Salamanca (new) cathedral

Did I mention we love Salamanca graphics?

Such a late Gothic, the vaulting is atypical

Altar

Crossing

Other vaulting decor

Flying casket

Rolling out the red carpet, perhaps not just for us

Guess whose chapel?

Lightly attended

Starboard aisle; it's a big, impressive building

Specimen chapel

Choir

Specimen misericord

Organ

Um, let's move on, quickly, to the old cathedral