And the guy sang: “Sevilla! Sevilla! Es una maravilla”

Which means as much as “Sevilla is just wonderful” and the guy who sang it was a quite notorious and a bit obnoxious street singer. Was he right?

Let’s start with some history. It appears Christopher Columbus is buried in the cathedral, well, at least parts of him. There’s a dispute about this as the poor fella was moved a few times post mortem. However, it seems that at least the remains of his lower body are located in Sevilla. Back in the days of 1492 it was a bit like venture capital and startups. Columbus wanted to sail but had to finance it – in the end, after numerous negotiations, Isabella The Catholic (see picture) was the angel investor of one of the most popular adventures: the discovery of “The New World”.

You can vividly be thrown into this world of the past when cruising around the historical sites of Sevilla and when visiting the General Archive of the Indies, of course. The entrance is free to a world of discovering the time around 1492. Just imagine how it must have felt sailing towards the empty horizon…hoping and believing that there’s a foreign land. But in the back of your mind you cannot tame the thought that you’re sailing towards the end of the world. Crazy shit.

Apart from that, Sevilla is a maravilla! It’s very clean. Very relaxed. Very hot. Veeery hot. And the Sevillans are very athletic. We saw many people running, biking, skating. The architecture and the atmosphere is amazing. There are just countless nice, little alleys, beautiful and generous squares, buildings filled with history and absolutely gorgeous parks. The parks made the best impression on me. When the heat gets to you, just move into Parque Maria Louisa, for instance, find some shade and relax to gain some energy to see the city at night.

Because at night, the city lights up in many ways. Firstly, the illumination brings a whole new atmosphere and many buildings appear in a different angle. But it brings out the night life as well. Part of it is the Flamenco, of course. We saw a show at Casa de la Memoria, which has a regular agenda of Flamenco, even outside of festivals or attractions. Now…I’m not sure whether what we saw was good, bad or mediocre Flamenco. But I’ve never seen such an outburst of visible energy and passion as in that show. The singing was a bit obnoxious to me, the guitar playing a piece of finest art, the female dancing already full of passion. But the kind of loudness and motion energy the male dancer, Juan Carlos Cardoso, put on the floor…I’ve never seen it, not on a tennis, basketball or football court, not on any other stage. Even if you don’t like events like these – it just lasts an hour – an hour you won’t forget.