We took a modern, comfortable bus from Tavira to Sevilla yesterday, crossing the national border midway through the three-hour trip. Since this is the Euro Zone, crossing from Portugal into Spain was like crossing from Nevada into Utah -- all we had to do was to adjust our clocks an hour ahead. Actually, Spain should be on the same clock as Portugal, and France, and other countries on WET (Western European Time), but Franco forced the clock an hour ahead in a show of solidarity with Hitler and Mussolini, and Spain has never gotten around to correcting the anomaly.
Sevilla is stunning, with its Andalucian character and Moorish and Mudejar architecture, extensive city parks and the Guadalquivir River running through it. We have a small two-room apartment right in the heart of the historic pedestrian-only district. It is early spring, with trees budding and leafing out. Unfortunately, it is also raining, raining, raining. It was sunny when we arrived yesterday, but today is dark and gloomy, umbrellas are everywhere, and temps are in the low 50s.
The rain, plus a head cold on my part, have curtailed our plans to explore Phoenician and Roman ruins outside of town at Itálica and Carmona. We did, however, make it to the archaeological museum (under the protection of our Portuguese umbrella), and it was a real treat. Human occupancy dates back to the Iron Age here, and the museum covers the findings in the region up through Roman times. Sevilla was a populace at the northern mouth of a large bay back then; the bay has silted in over the centuries, to leave the port stranded on a shallow river. Columbus, who is buried in Sevilla, would have set sail from here for the New World, but instead had to leave from Palos de la Frontera some 95 kilometers west of here, where there was open water.
I am always stunned in particular by the fine workings on the pottery, kitchenware, and religious burial plaques of people who lived so long ago as the Iron Age and Bronze Age, and there were plenty of examples in the exhibits. They made the colossal marble statues that the Romans erected in the last centuries of their dominion seem almost crude in comparison, though the renderings of some of those figures are also most impressive if in a different way. Tiny markings on knives, clasps, oil jars, and even fine gold jewelry are notable dating from Phoenician times, and the iron work of earlier periods is remarkable in its sophistication. They make our modern, mass-produced wares look cheap.
At any rate, the main activity since we arrived has really been eating. Our first meal in Spain was a classic traditional lunch: salmorejo, followed by veal steak in brandy sauce with potatoes (me), and eggs and Iberian ham on a bed of fried potatoes (Jerome). Flan for dessert. For dinner, we went to a more modern restaurant and ate tapas, but they were not traditional. The specialty of the house was fresh tuna, so we had it two different ways (one, sashimi-ish and the other tempura-ish) along with a small salad of garden greens and tomatoes, followed by a risotto. Lunch today was traditional tapas: mushrooms grilled with garlic, Spanish tortilla (a thick egg and potato omelet), veal in a beer sauce, eggplant slices rolled around cheese and jamón, spinach with garlic and jamón. Then tonight we went to a Japanese restaurant and had an excellent meal of, well, Japanese cuisine, even down to green-tea ice cream.
