A very interesting day, we walked to the centre of the city via a different route that took us to a pedestrian street full of interesting shops.
We finally arrived to our objective, the Alcazar. This is an Arabic word that means royal house. It was initially built by the Moorish kings and it is now the oldest royal palace in Europe. The Spanish king still uses the upper level as his residence in Sevilla.
The place is enormous and it has been modelled and remodeled over the centuries. There are many details of Arabic origin including room covered with tiles. The gardens are extensive and contain multiple fountains. We spent over three hours admiring the fortified castle.
The Alcazar is a located next to the Cathedral and to the General Archive of Indias. We had already spent a whole day at the Cathedral so we went the building of the Archives.
This is also a very impressive building that dates from the XVI century. The archives are rich with material from the first of the conquistadors to the end of the 19th century. Here are the Bull of Demarcation of the pope that divided the world between Spain and Portugal, the journal of Cristobal Colon, maps and plans America and of the colonial American cities, in addition to the ordinary archives that reveal the workings of the whole vast empire.
Today the Archivo General de Indias houses 43,000 volumes and some 80 million pages, which were produced by the colonial administration.
There is also a temporary exhibit of the Ulloa library which includes books from Newton, Kepler and Copernico, books from the XVII century. Mathematics, physics, navigation as well as biology and zoology. An incredible collection.
We ended the day with the rosary in the Parrish that is attached to the Cathedral.
Today we celebrate Saint Emilie de Vialar, thus we ask her to pray for us.
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