Seville pride
Andalucia’s capital is at the centre of the Old and New Worlds
IF you get a sense of Old World meets New World when you land in Seville then that’s deliberate. Because the capital of southern Spain’s Andalucian region, has always looked out beyond its shores. And it is at the heart of the American story.
After all it was from here that Christobal Colon who ‘in 1492 sailed the ocean blue’ to discover America set out.
Christobal Colon you ask? Well, that is the real name of the Genoese adventurer whom we all know as Columbus. Less wellknown still is that at the height of his fame he signed his name as Christo Ferrens. A little bit of the God Syndrome here then.
Columbus is all over this region. You can see his various signatures in the friary of La Ribada in southwest Spain, where he stayed while praying and preparing for his voyage into the unknown.
The monks helped persuade seafarers in nearby Palos de la Frontera to join him – they were understandably reluctant to voyage to the very edge of a ‘flat earth’. But eventually those three ships, the Santa Maria, Nina and Pinta, left on their quest for a shorter route to India.
There’s a marvellous museum – Muelle de Las Carabelas – dedicated to the tiny fleet, with fullscale reproductions of each. And in truth they are astoundingly small, the Nina and Pinta the size of ordinary fishing boats, and the flagship the size of a medium trawler today.
AFTER five weeks they had bumped not into the American landmass but the Bahamas. But hey, ho! It is his link with Seville here that we want to explore and how he found himself back here.
The seafarer made many more voyages (he had previously been to Galway), before dying in Valladolid, but his son Diego had his remains transferred to the Dominican Republic, where he was governor. When the French invaded in 1795, Columbus was disinterred and moved by sea a second time to Cuba, still a Spanish possession.
After the SpanishAmerican war his casket made a third post-mortem peregrination, making final landfall at the cathedral of Seville, which has its own port on the Guadalquivir.
The tomb is majestic, his catafalque borne aloft by four figures representing theoriginal four kingdoms of Spain – Aragon, Leon, Castile and Navarre. Seeing it, and savouring the discovery of the New World is reason enough to visit Seville, where they joke that Columbus undertook more voy- ages in death than in life.
There are of course more which is why I have travelled here with Travel Department to learn... and lounge.
The four-star Barcelo Punta Umbria Mar is the perfect place to luxuriate (and I am on half-board) – the beach is just a decking across the dunes away.
The sister Barcelo Beach hotel is ironically set back across the road. An infrequent bus service gives access to the town, but a taxi jour- ney will typically cost just €5. If that.
The Barcelo has a bewildering smorgasbord on offer for the evening meal, although your wine will cost extra.
There are also excellent beach bars where you can nibble on gambas (prawns) while watching a red sun slide down over the amber rim of your beer.
Best advice would be to nail down the Barcelo Mar soon, as the finest hotel on the Costa de la Luz is going to get finer still – upgrading to a five-star resort, which will mean closure for some months next year.
Rooms come with a balcony, all set in U-shape overlooking the pool and that wave-crashing coastline where swimming is safe at all times.
Epicures will want to stray inland, inevitably to Seville, where all manner of restaurants are on offer, including in the Arab style, with even Irish cuisine on offer.
Draught beer costs about €3.50 a ‘pinta,’ but a supermarket supersupply averages less than 30c a bottle for the scrimpers. Actually, within a stone’s throw of the Barcelo Mar is Brown’s Irish pub, colloquially and naturally enough known as ‘Mrs Brown’s bar.’
But do bestir yourself to go to Seville where the Alcazar (from the Arabic for ‘the castle’) is the Balmoral of Spain, ie, King Felipe’s royal retreat from Madrid. A trip to Seville is included in the holiday.
You might catch sight of a princess or two, but this fortress is now chiefly famous for its astounding gardens and oases of calm, as if it were Bloom under a sombrero.
And after that, make sure to visit the adjacent Old City, where the passages are so narrow they are known as ‘kissing streets.’ Now there’s a way to revive the romance in your relationship!
The cathedral also boasts the largest altar in Christendom – a vertical mountain-face of gold from the Americas, along with a bell tower, the Giralda, that has become a symbol of the city, and which was once a minaret, reflecting the centuries-long Arab occupation of southern Spain.
For many further centuries, no building in Seville was allowed to rival it, until in the last decade an ugly ‘tele-tower’ controversially broke the Giralda’s dominance of the skyline, much to the dissatisfaction of citizens.
But it’s a rare blemish in a city of
gorgeous bridges across the green river, myriad parks and squares, and even a functioning bull-ring, even if that sport has waned as a spectacle for international visitors.
As you lounge on these beaches you may wish to reflect the part they played on how World War II was won.
This year marks the 75th Anniversary of the tale of the Man Who Never Was, the greatest military deception since the Trojan Horse.
A sardine fisherman named Jose Antonio Rey Maria spotted a ‘lump’ on the waves that early April wartime morning which was in fact the body of a man in British khaki uniform, wearing a lifejacket, with a briefcase chained to its owner. An identity card indicated it was that of a Major William Martin of the Royal Marines.
The Spanish concluded that this was a messenger, whose aircraft had been downed at sea. But a German spy in nearby Huelva was already literally on the case – and when opened, it was found to contain sealed letters to Allied generals waiting in North Africa for the invasion of Europe.
AS BRITISH officials remonstrated for the surrender of the briefcase, the letters were already being opened and reopened and photographed before being re-sealed and returned.
Their secrets transmitted to Germany and ultimately landing on Hitler’s desk, it indicated that the Allies would attack Greece – not Sicily, as the Nazis had long suspected and they changed their plans accordingly.
The dead man though was not William Martin, but a Welsh tramp named Glyndwr Michael who was shoved from a submarine close to the Spanish coast. His papers, including a demand from his bank manager and a masterful letter from his lover, were all fake. So were the official entries for his death in The Times and the casualty rolls.
In a peripheral Irish connection, the Germans used Republicans from here to check his background. But William Martin appeared to check out, as Berlin was duly advised.
The body, with false name and invented parents, lies in the cemetery of Our Lady of Solace in Huelva. Only in 2006 did the British ensure his correct identity was added to the stone.
The humble plot is nothing like that of the Columbus tomb in nearby Seville, but this man too helped to give us a new world. To visit the resting place of both is to ponder how great events are sometimes hinged on the most ludicrous ideas.
But a notion that can never be called into question is that of pairing a visit to civilized Seville and more humble Huelva with a spell of radiant relaxation at Porta Umbria. Culture and the sun cult, what could be better?