Seville, Spain

Seeing the port of Huelva, Spain, may not inspire many to choose a cruise, despite the ancient port's historic links "on the trail of Columbus."

What excites more travelers is the opportunity to visit gorgeous Seville, a city rich in culture, history and romance.

We opted for Oceania's "Seville on Your Own" primarily because it cost $110 per person less than their "Highlights of Seville" guided tour.

If we had opted for Oceania's "Unlimited Passport Collection," which for about $100 per day cruisers can take as many shore excursions as they want (for excursions $199 per person or less), we probably would have taken the guided tour, that usually costs $169.95 per person.

While not guided, we did have a local expert on the bus with us, sharing a bit of local color on the trip.  This young lady was from Huelva, and she praised her home as being a great destination in its own right, but most of her narration was about Seville.

So, even though it wasn't a guided tour, there is a bit of guidance, including a warning that the streets of Seville can become a maze with dead ends and result in coming out of a neighborhood far from your intended destination.

We drove past the bull ring and stopped near Torre del Oro (Tower of Gold), from which she led us along pristine streets past majestic architecture to a plaza near the Cathedral of Seville and the Alcazar.

There were lines for both, but we opted for the Alcazar, a fortress built in the Moorish style. Anything in Iberia that starts with "Al" has its origins in the Arabic language.   In this case, al-qaṣr means castle, so we might easily assume this was built during the long era of Muslim rule.

While a tower built around the year 800 remains, most of the fortress was built after the Reconquista.

One explanation for why Christians chose this style is simply because it is beautiful, which it is.  Just as logically, by the time the area had been under Muslim rule for 400 years, the best architects in the area were often Moors or others had grown up around that style, so that was what they understood.

It didn't take long to realize the line wasn't moving at all, and about that time, a young lady walked past saying "skip-the-line" guided tours were available for just 10 Euro per person more than the cost of admission.  Admission was 12 Euro, with discounts available for seniors over 65 or students with ID.  This took us out of the general line and gave us an appointment to enter about 15 minutes later.

Our guide, Carmen, turned out to be a jewel, sharing wonderful information about everything from the art to the history to notes about filming "Game of Thrones" there.

One of the "Game of Thrones" anecdotes was about actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister.  He went outside of the Alcazar for lunch and was forced to stand in line like the tourists to get back in.  When after waiting in line for two hours he finally reached the gate, the guard insisted he pay for admission.

Nikolaj said, "You don't understand, I am one of the actors.  I play Jamie Lannister."

The seasoned old guard looked  him up and down and said, "You're the third man claiming to be Jamie Lannister today."

Nikolaj paid the entrance fee so he could get back to the set without further delay.

The beauty and historical grandeur of the buildings and the grounds the Alcazar of Seville is reason enough to go.  Those qualities make it a perfect movie setting, as it was for "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Kingdom of Heaven" before "Game of Thrones" brought it to TV screens.

Recognizing a straight line from Lisbon to Seville would be about 200 miles, it is interesting to note that in that same Earthquake of 1755 that destroyed Lisbon, the Alcazar sustained substantial damage.

According to Carmen, ceramic tiles were rattled from the walls, and while they had been re-assembled later, it seems whoever put them back wasn't perfect at jigsaw puzzles.  Keep in mind this was in an age before photos could have been used provide guidance.

After our thorough tour ended with time on our own to explore the gardens, Julie and I walked along an elevated corridor overlooking the gardens but decided to use our limited time by continuing on to the Cathedral of Seville.

Fortunately, the line had thinned down to almost nothing, so it only took five minutes to get tickets (9 Euro), adding one audio guide (3 Euro) that we shared.

The highlight for me in this truly magnificent Cathedral was the Tomb of Christopher Columbus.

In a brilliantly conceived and crafted work of art by Arturo Melida, the tomb itself is hoisted by pallbearers --- and I still say one of them looks like Elvis Presley --- illustrating the way his bones were carried around Europe on the way to this final resting place in the Cathedral of Seville in 1899.

The highly venerated explorer's body had originally been brought to Seville in 1506 shortly after his death by congestive heart failure at the age of 55.  He died in the Castilian city of Valladolid, about 350 miles northeast of Seville.  His bones began traveling the world again 36 years later.  The explorer's daughter-in-law re-located his remains and those of her late husband (former Governor of the Indies) to a new family tomb in Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola, one of his first stops in the New World.

The bones of Columbus were moved to Havana, Cuba, in 1795, when they ceded Dominican Republic to France, which over the years had assumed control of the neglected western part of Hispaniola (essentially Haiti).  The bones of Columbus stayed in Cuba a hundred years, when perhaps anticipating the Spanish-American War, Spain brought them back to Europe.  Before resting in Seville, they made one last triumphant tour of the Continent.

It would be easy to spend a full day at either the Alcazar or the Cathedral of Seville, but the city itself is so enchanting, we wanted to go outside to roam the streets.

We stopped at a sidewalk cafe where I enjoyed a pint of Cruzcampo, an Andalucian Pilzner lager.  Julie and I shared patatas fritas (essentially kettle potato chips). The prices here and throughout Spain were very modest.

Rather than re-tracing our steps back to the meeting place, we followed another couple who looked like they knew where they were going down an inviting, shady street.  Wandering along, we found ourselves in the maze we'd been cautioned against entering.

As usual, we'd allowed extra time in case we got lost, and asking for directions occasionally, we emerged by the river which we knew would lead back to the Golden Tower, from which we could find our appointed meeting place at the plaza.

That we had gone well beyond the bull ring was surprising, but it gave us a chance to snap a few photos there.

On the ship that afternoon, Terry Bishop had made a presentation about the Spanish Civil War, which I'm sure would have been interesting, but despite having the replay available on our TV, we never got around to watching it.  We did, however, find time every evening to watch the lovely string quartet play classical selections before enjoying delicious meals.