Wanderlust: Seville

Shade and a fan will be your best friends in Summer.

Tiles decorate many buildings throughout the city.

Seville is home to one of the largest medieval Gothic cathedrals.

The fierce sun sets late, casting long and lazy shadows throughout the city.

The attention to detail in the architecture is remarkable.

Seville: The Tale Of Two Cities

Seville is a convergent city. It is the result of a cataclysmic clash of eastern and western cultures. At times, the city is ambivalent, vacillating between two worlds. Seville is both Spanish and Moorish, both Muslim and Christian, and the footprint of each culture is left--sometimes shallow, other times deep--in the city's architecture, gastronomy, art, and even the faces of of its inhabitants. It is one of those rare cities that is uniquely two things at once. One has the feeling that it takes two distinct lenses to view this single city. The challenge of viewing Seville is to see it as a whole, without compromising its individual parts.

Though Madrid and Barcelona often monopolize much of the country's tourism, Seville is a city that should not be overlooked. It's romantic, sexy, historic, and influential. This is where tapas are gorged, where Flamenco is adored, and where nights are wasted away drinking and conversing. Seville is more than just the capital of Andalusia--it is a capital of culture, a capital of beauty. This is evident in a perfectly crafted plate of ox tail, in the Moorish eyes of a woman assuaging the heat with a fan, or the tormented voice of a Sevillanas singer.

To truly appreciate Seville, one need only to wander the streets aimlessly, only occasionally seeking refuge from the heat in intricately and immaculately tiled buildings. The tiles, inspired by Arabic culture, cool the body as well as the eyes. It is also very necessary to admire the people. They're beautiful, and dark, and fluid in their movements. The women are wildly alluring. The men, intriguing. Even the children--either eating sophisticated food or playing happily on stoney streets--are a pleasure to watch. Only content and satisfied children can play so freely without toys and electronics.

In a city where Gothic spires of Catholic cathedrals cast lazy shadows on the facades of Moorish buildings, one can feel overwhelmed with all that must be seen. Take a deep breath. Relax. Sip your sherry and put up your feet. Have a long, hard look around you. Seville is a tale of two cities, and in the beginning, it will take two lenses to appreciate it. But, once you learn to see the city as a whole, you'll see it through the lens of a monocle--and all its beauty will be singular.