December 1st – Alcazar in December

Today we went to the Alcazar in Seville and for a bunch of desert rats from Colorado it was impossible to tell that it was December.  We had a sunny day and ended up spending 5 or 6 hours here so only got out for lunch at 4:30 pm which is late even for Spain.  It has been a royal residence since the 12^th Century and is still one today.  The second oldest part of it was designed in the Mudejar manner so that it appears to look Moorish but is actually Christian Spanish; it is just as beautiful in its own way as the Alhambra. 

The ceramic tiles are everywhere on the walls and floor and they have an exhibit dedicated to showing them in all their beauty from the 15^th to 19^th century.   There are also 18^th century tapestries that were copied from the original 16^th century ones that are quite beautiful. 


But as icing on the cake there is the garden.  It is quite extensive and lovely; there are palm trees, Orange, Lemon, and Lime trees, blooming roses, blooming bird of paradise, fruiting pomegranates, and date palms.  Until opened by the royal family the whole complex was completely private.

 

 

 

So after spending a week in the South and getting to experience in some small degree, I have a few thoughts.  First, it is fallacious to suppose that the Moorish culture was not Spanish just because it wasn’t Christian.   After all they were here for around 800 years before the Reconquista and we in the U.S. of non-native derivation have only been there for around 500 years.   Next, the Romans occupied Spain for around 500 years before they were overthrown by the Visigoths who in turn were overthrown by the Moors.   The enlightened Moors were overthrown by Berbers and tribesmen from North Africa , the Muslim equivalent of Visigoths, a couple hundred years before the Reconquista, so it seems possible that had that not happened perhaps the Reconquista may have failed.   The Muslims were certainly more tolerant of the different religions living in some harmony with both Jews and Christians, whereas after the Reconquista the toleration lasted less than 20 years before Muslims and Jews were exiled or forced to convert to Catholicism.  So which culture was the more enlightened?   (Editor’s note:  And it’s still playing out today only now the weapons are so much more sophisticated and deadly.   Though the armies of the past were using weaponry as sophisticated as any they could conceive.)