March 10-12, 2022
“To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.”
- St Teresa of Avila
It’s been raining. Our run of perfect weather appears to be coming to and end. At least for the next few days. It’s all right though. We came prepared for inclement weather and did not expect to enjoy as much good weather as we have experienced.
Sevilla is one of those cities that looks even better in the rain. The rivulets of water coarse down the cobble stone streets and the sides of the buildings glow as the water reflects back the light. The smell of the many orange trees is more acute.
Being an American and not used to walking around such historic buildings, it feels a little like a street in DisneyWorld. The plants, shops, and buildings are a little too perfect. It feels like a movie set. Except, it is not fake. These buildings are real. Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people have walked these same lanes over the centuries.
Before the weather turned, we went on a walk through the old Jewish Quarter near our hotel. Here the buildings are densely packed together as the city’s increasingly hostile Christian population wanted to contain the Jewish population. At night, the gates would be locked not to protect the Jews, but to prevent them from leaving the area.
Later, we would use the word Ghetto for this kind of arrangement.
During Moorish rule, Jews had lived in Sevilla for centuries. They had prosperous businesses and traded freely with the other citizens. When the town was “liberated” by the Christian king Ferdinand, Initially, the jews were tolerated so long as they confined themselves to this area.
However, by the 14th century, the Christian population grew increasingly hostile to the Jewish population. They were accused of everything from poisoning the wells to ritual sacrifices of infants.
Does any of this sound familiar to my many Q-Anon supporting readers?
In the summer of 1391, the Jewish quarter was attacked. Approximately 4,000 Jews were killed here and over 5,000 were forced to leave the area.
Synagogues, like one that used to be where Colleen is sitting above, were razed and a church was built here.. To root out “The problem” of underground Judaism, Ferdinand and Isabel established the ‘Inquisition’. Over the next three decades, thousands would be tortured and killed in the name of creating a ‘pure Christian Spain’. In 1492, the same year Columbus left for his first voyage it was decreed that all remaining Jews must with convert to Christianity or leave Spain.
This beautiful court was most definitely not DisneyWorld,
In this same neighborhood you find this door and small church. This is the Monasterio de San Jose del Carmen. It is the convent founded by the renowned Christian mystic Saint Teresa. She was a noblewoman in the 1500’s who after experiencing tragedy in her life felt a calling to become a nun. Highly educated she wrote several important and highly influential works on faith here in this building.
There were a number of wedding parties out and about. Groups of young women or men celebrating. Typically the bride or groom is wearing an outlandish costume as you can see below.
Another beautiful church filled with iconography. They contained huge statues that are mobile, placed on enormous floats, and paraded through the narrow cobblestone streets.
Open air markets were hives of activity. Why does the produce in our supermarkets never look this good?
During the rainy days, we walked around the shopping districts and took in some of the numerous Tapa bars. What a wonderful tradition!. You sit in a sidewalk cafe watching people go by and you order a drink. The waiter will bring you a small plate of food with your drink. The variety is enormous. Everything from fried fish to ox tail soup. Then you just spend the afternoon drinking and eating. It is a wonder this nation has any GDP. Everyone always seems to be drinking and eating!
Glorious!
We leave tomorrow for Cordoba. We will be there for a few days then on to our last stop in Barcelona.
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