Día de la Hispanidad

We celebrated our first Spanish national holiday this past weekend: el Día de la Hispanidad. Every October 12, Spain has a 2-in-1 holiday. They celebrate the day of the Virgin Pilar, who is the patron virgin of Spain, and they celebrate the day Columbus discovered the Americas. I didn’t really know what to expect on our day off – other than our supermarket being closed.

Brad and I had a visitor, Cathleen, stay with us for the holiday weekend. (Cathleen has a Fulbright to teach school in Madrid this year, and we met her during the orientation week there.) As we were preparing our apartment for lunch on Friday with Cathleen and Rob (Rob is Brad’s fellow researcher), we heard loud drumming outside our building. We rushed downstairs and found a parade passing right in front of our building at that very moment.

The small parade was led by the Virgin of Pilar – a sculpted virgin clothed in beautiful fabric, and surrounded by white flowers – on top of a wooden platform. Behind the virgin was a brass band playing a melancholy, but rhythmic tune. Watching the parade slowly pass by for those few minutes was quite magical.

The parade was heading to this church, just 2 blocks away from our apartment; where the virgin resides when she’s not leading parades.

Close up of the Madonna on this church; I especially like this one because Mary is crouching down with Jesus

Having our first visitor in Sevilla was a good excuse for us to finally see 2 of the biggest sights in the city: the cathedral/Giralda (tower) and the Real Alcázar (royal fortress).

Cathleen, Brad and Rob in front of the cathedral

The cathedral was first built as a mosque in the 12th century and just a few decades later it was consecrated as a cathedral. It has been added to, embellished and generally "duded up" for centuries. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: that cathedral is freaking huge.

Sevilla is flat. So, climbing to the top of the Giralda in the cathedral is a nice way to see the entire city from up high.

One view from the Giralda; you can see just a snippet of the river in the background

The Real Alcázar was extraordinary! The palace and gardens are so expansive that I didn’t even try to see everything. When I get my residency card, I can go there for free and I plan to do so often. The Real Alcázar is another example of a Spanish structure that’s been around since the Moors. As you can see, the Moorish architecture is striking.


Muslims do not depict humans or animals in art, so the entire Moorish part of the palace is covered in countless intricate wood carvings and colorful mosaic designs. If you stare at those designs long enough, you really go to another level . . . like . . . mentally . . .

Taken during hour 3 of Neely's mosaic trance . . .

At the Real Alcázar, you wander into a different room and suddenly you've gone from 12th century Moorish Spain to Christian/Gothic Spain. These ballrooms are painted yellow with white trim, a gilded Madonna is hanging on the wall and incredibly detailed tapestries of Spain’s discovery of the Americas are on display. And then there’s a random cross-eyed merman.

Merman

Our weekend with Cathleen also involved lots of delicious local cuisine, wandering around Santa Cruz and Triana, and lengthy discussions on peculiarities in Spain. It starts to feel like home when you get to show your first visitor around your new city.