Carmona

 Carmona, less than 30 minutes drive from Seville, is a beautiful, historic, small town. It is the Spanish home of Michael Portillo, the TV rail traveller and ex-MP. His connection with Spain is a father who lectured at Salamanca university and fled to England at the time of the Spanish civil war. Disappointingly, Michael did not put in an appearance to show us round. 

We parked outside the old town in an  underground pay car park. Although there are several free parks, these are patrolled by self appointed parking attendants wearing official-looking high-viz jackets who demand money for parking, so you either pay up or risk damage to your vehicle. We’ve come across this at other places in Spain. 

Emerging from the car park, we see a lovely view of San Pedro church with its tower modelled on the Giralda tower in Seville.

Just beyond the church is the Puerta de Sevilla, the entrance to the old town. The gate is mainly original Roman structure through which the main road, the via Augusta, passed on its way to Cordoba.

It’s a double gate, and the next photo shows how massive and well fortified it was. Nothing, of course, is completely original as is see from the Moorish arches added later.

Just inside the gate, the old town is pleasantly laid out mainly in this style of building.

It’s a short walk to the central square, the Plaza de San Fernando. Folks from my generation will understand when I say that the last train is still expected here. The square contains some splendid Moorish style buildings  like the Casa de Cabildo, the old town hall.

Just beyond the square is the 14^th century church of Santa Maria la Mayor built over a mosque. The tower is thought to be adapted from the mosque’s minaret.

Inside, the church is beautifully proportioned, with marble tiled floors and sweeping arches.

he guide book tells us that the ornate panel over the alter is called a retablo, and can be illuminated by inserting a coin. We see that it’s already lit up so someone’s already activated the lights.

Leaving the church, we walked to the Cordoba Gate at the other end of the old town, from where the road sped on to Cordoba. It’s a fine old edifice, originally Roman but modified many times since. The latest modification appears to be stopping it from crumbling.

Onwards and upwards to Pedro’s Alcazar, a massive fortress that dominates the eastern side of the town. The fortress walls were badly damaged by an earthquake in 1504, but apparently never fully repaired.

Part of the decaying structure was saved by being converting into a parador. These are state-run hotels usually in ancient buildings that would otherwise have been lost to the ravages of time. So, we go  through this gate…

…and into the parador grounds.

Paradors operate at the higher end of the hotel market, but perhaps not luxury category. This one costs around £200 per night for a double room - well over a week’s campsite fees! 

One reputed gem we didn’t have time to visit was the Roman necropolis, half a mile out of town. We’ll look forward to seeing it another time, and  the town merits another visit.

 

Cadiz

Cadiz has a long history as a seaport.  It was founded in about 1100 BC by the Phoenicians. Inhabitants of Cadiz are known as Gaditanos after the original Phoenician name Gadir. 

England in its various wars with Spain has bombarded Cadiz several times,  for example by Drake who claimed to have “Singed the King of Spain’s beard” and Nelson at the time of Trafalgar. However, we didn’t see any evidence of these attacks. 

The guidebook says the wealthiest period for Cadiz was from the 17^th century after the river port of Seville silted up and that trade then went through Cadiz, particularly the gold and silver plundered from the New World. The cathedral owes its redevelopment to that wealth, originally a mosque, then a 13^th century church before being reconstructed lavishly as a cathedral.

We pay at the door and are shown towards a sloping passageway. We quickly realise that we are ascending one of the bell towers not entering the cathedral itself. 

It’s a stiff climb but we get to the top just as one of the seven bells is striking. The photo is a non-striking bell:

As you would expect, the views are panoramic and the good news is that there’s no sign on the horizon of English galleons bent on revenge.

After descending (more easily!) to the base of the bell tower we now enter the cathedral itself. It’s full of the usual images, gold alterpieces and marble pillars, but magnificent nonetheless.

Once out of the cathedral, we walked through the fishermen’s district to one of the city gates set in the old city walls.

The gate led to a causeway linking with a fort that would have dominated the seaways into the city but now looks unimpressive. Nice beach though.

This is part of the old jail. From the outside, it could be modern day apartments, so not looking too austere. I’m sure the reality was very different.

So what’s this, a pile of junk fly-tipped over the breakwater wall? Looking closely, they are rough and ready cat boxes. There are several large colonies on the sea side of the breakwater with notices to say that the cats are neutered and aren’t doing any harm there. Presumably, the cats’ guardians are a charity with official permission for the moggytown. It’s an interesting way to deal with Spain’s feral cat population.

These are the gates to the old town, set in the old walls, now claimed totally by the heavy traffic entering and leaving the city.

The convent of Santo Domingo was finished in 1650 and the tower is made out of Cadiz oyster stone. Here’s a photo of the tower – very nice- but we couldn’t see how oyster stone was anything special.. 

The last photo is a good example of too much information! The stone wall along the front is part of the Roman theatre. The tower on the right is the cathedral tower that we climbed. There’s another one to the left, and then the cathedral dome that’s supposed to shimmer like gold except looks like a cold fried egg. Research revealed no info on the multi-coloured pyramid. 

There were other  significant buildings and museums in Cadiz that we couldn’t fit in on a day trip. In just over an hour we arrive back in Sardine City Campsite, Seville, an easy 65 miles on good motorways. 

Monday 18th March: Seville

 There is only one campsite convenient for Seville, in a suburb with a frequent and cheap bus service. Because of its monopoly, the campsite really packs ‘em in.

Campers use the site to visit Seville and the surrounding area then move on: no long-stay campers here. However, it’s quiet at night, and we got this reasonable end pitch:

So, having used the perfect bus service, here we are taking the short walk from the terminus to the historic centre of Seville. We come to the second largest building in Spain, after the Escorial Palace near Madrid. The enormous edifice  now houses the university, and is as long to the left of the entrance, which isn’t visible, as to the right that is shown on the photo:

It seems anyone can wander in, which we did, where it’s much less austere, with pleasant courtyards
and patios:

It was formerly a cigar factory, and the building’s forever claim to fame is that it was Carmen’s place of work in Bizet’s opera of that name. You enter the building half expecting, to hear the stirring Toreador song, but I’m sure today’s  anti-smoking lobby would prefer Alan Smethurst’s  (the Singing Postman) “Have you got a loit boy”. The compromise is silence.

 

Next we pass the superluxury hotel Alfonso Xiii. The hotel was built to accommodate top visitors such as heads of state attending a grand exhibition planned for 1929. The exhibition never happened because of the Wall Street crash. King Alfonso Xiii was also a disaster and abdicated after a short reign.

Street performers start to appear in the square leading to the cathedral, some worth watching, some not. Here we have a flamenco dancer whose shawl is magically produced from the litter bin behind. Who says the camera never lies?

The huge cathedral is impressive from any angle, inside or out. It was blogged in detail in 2020, together with its integral Giralda tower, so we didn’t visit again, but the stunning architectural detail has to be worth another photo:

So what’s this shop all about? We never did find out. Cannabis is nominally illegal in Spain but apparently tolerated. Anyway, we couldn’t fit a plant that size into the caravan.

In another square there is a protest that became much noisier later. Nothing to do with big politics e.g. Ukraine or Gaza, but employees of the Public Buildings Authority who are objecting to plans to privatise the cleaning services. Just as in the UK, they can’t see any advantage.

Good Friday is next week and all towns are getting ready for big parades. In Seville, unsurprisingly, it’s big time. Religious banners are going up everywhere, routes being laid out and seating installed. Practically all shops have religious effigies reflecting their support for “Semana Santa”. Here’s an example, and we perhaps ought not to be too judgemental.

Just off the centre is the museum, by way of contrast a modern design but pleasing nonetheless. Its canopy spans the museum building itself and then the whole road.

We head for the Casa de Pilato, a grand mansion of the early 16^th century. It is a mixture of Moorish and European styles. The front façade sums it up: 

The inner courtyard looks completely Moorish, like a Moroccan palace. The idea is to create a cool and shady atmosphere in the extreme summer temperatures, particularly as Seville is the warmest city in Europe.

Inside we observe restorers at work. It’s really painstaking – and look at that detailed ceiling! Stiff necks and a hot bath for the whole team after a day’s work, I’m sure.

And look at this for another ceiling! Why was so much effort and cost expended on these intricate ceilings – how much did these people drink?

Most of the walls are covered in small, highly patterned tiles. The cost, time and expertise must have been enormous.

Another intricate design, covering half a wall. Their patience and skill was unimaginable.

Now here’s an odd one to finish – a portrait in the classical style of a couple holding their child. It’s entitled  “The Bearded Lady”! So, we are to assume that dad is in the background and bearded mum is holding the child. It has to be said that, even clean shaven, mum would still look very masculine. They both look too old to have kids anyway. Why didn’t the artist go the whole hog and paint a bearded baby as well?

So goodbye to Don Pilato, and we head back to the bus terminus. Soon back to our sardine campsite and sit out for an hour – it’s plenty warm enough, 26 degrees C or so. Tomorrow we visit Cadiz.

Tuesday 12th March: Burgos then Monfrague

 Burgos is a one-nighter, and we’ve stayed here before. It’s pleasant enough, set in a park by a river, but the site is rather run-down. As we had arrived early, we were able to sit out for an hour in the warm sun and then walk by the river: a good wind-down after the drive. 

Burgos is 2,800 feet above sea level so, despite the warm sun on our arrival, there was an overnight frost. It soon warmed up as we got under way. Our destination is Monfrague. This isn’t a town, but a national park containing a peaceful campsite. We stayed here some 10 years ago and, by chance, bagged the very same pitch overlooking a sheep field.

It could almost pass for a piece of England, but many of the trees are cork oaks and there are some unusual birds like the azure winged magpie. These travel in large flocks and appear late afternoon. This is one close-up:

The park visitor centre next to the campsite, all free, provides information on the wildlife to be found in the park - some of it in English, even more helpfully. The extensive nature trail outside carries on with more info boards. The animals and birds don’t generally stay around to be ID’d  but we enjoyed some pretty flowers, for example this little orchid:

The  views are spectacular too, looking towards the still snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Walking back to our pitch, we spot another resident of the area – the stork. Their nests are found on pylons, poles and masts everywhere. They’re really numerous, and present all year round. Goodness knows what the birth rate is like in this area!

We shop in the nearest small town of Plasencia, and then go on to the focal point of the park – the Salto de Gitano, the Gypsy’s Leap. This is a rocky defile in the river Tajo, on its way to the sea at Lisbon, Portugal.

The far cliff is home to hundreds of vultures, more visible in the next photo:

Close-up, with a bigger lens, these are seen to be griffon vultures with a wingspan of around 10 feet. There’s also a  slightly larger resident in the park, the black vulture but we didn’t any today. 

Next stop a hermitage and 12^th century castle ruins dating back to the Moorish occupation. Thankfully, as the day has turned warm, we can drive most of the way up. It’s not as amazingly impressive as we imagined, particularly with the modern chapel tacked on the end. 

However, the views are spectacular, looking down over the Tajo, and Jane with binoculars in hand:

To finish, a view towards the other direction, unfortunately blocked by two cheesy faces. We rarely allow ourselves the indulgence of a selfie – you can perhaps appreciate why!

We’ve had a really super relaxing time here at Monfrague and tomorrow it’s into the hectic tourist world of Seville.