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| Me and my mom in the garden in Madrid |
We spent five days in Madrid, and I was still a little bummed because Madrid is... just okay. I mean, I got to check off my mental bucket list to see Guernica, one of Pablo Picasso's most famous paintings, and the food and wine were consistently good. But I found the city itself a bit icy and up tight.
Then, we got to Seville, and all of my wishes to be somewhere else vanished. Seville is a gorgeous, energetic, beautiful, delicious city. People have been incredibly friendly, kind, and fun. Everywhere we go, in all directions, the city is bustling. The sidewalks outside all the tiny restaurants are full of people in winter coats sitting and standing around tables, socializing, sipping wines, and snacking on tapas. Service is fantastic, and oh my goodness have we had such good food. Everywhere.
It was here that I was reminded that visiting UNESCO World Heritage sites is also on my list!
The best part of that is that we accidentally visited these sites in both Madrid and Seville.
I still don't quite get exactly what counts as Madrid's Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, a landscape of Arts and Sciences, but it seems both the tree-lined avenue that runs along past the Prado and the Sofia Reina (art museums) counts. I did comment multiple times that the fountain of Neptune in the middle of one of the roundabouts seemed very impressive... and that it was also weird it was in the middle of a roundabout with five lanes of traffic blocking any real admiring of it. My mom and I also went to El Retiro Parque, which was quite beautiful and pleasant. If I hadn't had plantar fasciitis, I would be been running there every day (like I did in Barcelona).
Then, in Seville, while we didn't go inside the sites listed, we did go around them multiple times and met our Eating Europe guide (Alfonso, what a doll) in the center of one of the squares that is included in the site. So, I'm counting it, especially as it's just extra since we went to multiple sites in Madrid.
It was a bit sobering to read about the history of the UNESCO site and other sites in Seville though. As Seville is so far south, there's a lot of violent history affecting the former Jewish population, the Moors, and others who were forced out during various violent times in Spain's history, including the Inquisition. It's bizarre to think of so much beauty and erasure standing on top of so much historical violence. There are some areas where the history is incorporated into the architecture, like with the Giralda, and I was thankful our food tour guide described why there were not many Jewish people left, though there is still the Jewish Quarter, also called Barrio Santa Cruz, after the Jewish population was first killed and expelled, and then the Inquisition and then World War II. He still called it the Jewish Quarter, and others seem to too, which I hope grants some honor and respect to the people who were killed or forced out.
So, I'm having mixed feelings about the history of this place, though I suppose I also have those mixed feelings about my home country, especially at this moment in time. Beauty and joy and art and food can and do coexist with violence and oppression and need for change. That's what I'm taking away from this trip and these sites.
