Where In The World Is The Rash Family?: Seville's Cathedral and Plaza de Espana

Seville's Saint Mary's Cathedral is the largest gothic cathedral in the world and the third largest Christian church in the world. It was a mosque that had been Christianized in 1248. It was ruined in the 1300's because of an earth quake and then re-built in 1402 because the mosque wasn't in good condition. The decision of the members of the church head was: "Let a church so beautiful and so great that those who see it built will think we are mad." The construction was finished in 1506.

Interesting tid bits: The altar piece is the largest in the world at 98 feet high and 66 feet wide.

The tomb of Christopher Columbus resides here.

The cathedral contains 80 chapels.

Replica of the minaret that stands a-top the bell tower.

Buildings that have replicated the Giralda are
the Wrigley building in Chicago and a building in
Kansas City along with the Ferry building in San
Francisco.

One of the pieces of the mosque that was kept was the minaret. A minaret is a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic mosques generally a tall spire with an onion shaped or conical crown, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure. The basic form of a minaret includes a base, shaft, and gallery. Styles vary regionally and by period. Minarets provide a visual focal point and are used for the call to prayer. (thank you Wikipedia).

Cathedral's bell tower with minaret of a woman on top.

A portion of the backside of the cathedral.

The Seville Cathedral is surrounded by small columns linked with huge chains. These chains were placed in 1565 to prevent the merchants from entering the temple with their horses when the weather was bad. It also marked the boundaries of the sacred places, where the civil justice could not be enforced. People used to go there looking for protection and redemption

Another building we walked by had beautiful hand carvings that appear to be abstract unil a closer look was taken. How many faces can you see in this small area? Their are over 5,000 carvings of faces on the building.

Another side of the well carved building.

Plaza de Espana

Each in-let along the left side contained a mosaic of Spanish
cities.

Plaza de Espana was built for a world's fair held in Seville, Spain from May 9, 1929 to June 21, 1930. Countries in attendance of the exposition included: Portugal, The United States, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, the Republic of Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. The purpose of the exposition was to improve relations between Spain and the countries in attendance, many of which were former Spanish colonies.

Raleigh stands in front of a mosaic representing one of the cities

The hand painted tile work was beautiful. The whole square was vast yet romantic with the boats rowing around the circle.

The red hair must have intrigued the Japanese tourists as they crowded around Raleigh to take his photo and later the girls were asked to pose with a tourist for a picture.