Two observations of Seville

[fivemack]

1. The fruit of the municipal orange trees found all over the city is unaccountably bitter, with something of a taste of marmalade. Perhaps they´re just not ripe ...

2. The Plaza de l´España, a semicircle a quarter-mile in diameter with a paved plaza, huge fountain, five towers, and six-foot by four-foot panels in painted tiles describing each of the 71 administrative districts of Spain, may be the most excessive administrative building ever. Somehow I´d feel a certain reluctance to take the advice of a Chamber of Commerce located on the third floor of a vast-vaulted pigeon-haunted pavilion covered with iridescent tiles, though I´d take its photo.

Seville is a little less self-servingly excessively filled with majestic buildings than Paris, but at least as fun to amble around - many more shady parks, though I suppose they´re compulsory given the climate.

Comments

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

As marmalade is made from Seville oranges, this is not surprising!

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

1. Are you being sarcastic? I expect you to know about Seville oranges.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I knew marmalade was made from Seville oranges; I was just amused to find that the oranges planted in Seville were Seville oranges, in much the same way as I was amused to find that the feral cats in Bangkok were mostly Siamese.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Oh, good. That's what I was hoping you meant. But I haven't noticed you taking that tone before so I was puzzled as to whether I was supposed to take it the one way or the other.

Reminds me of a poem

[akicif.livejournal.com]

With orange peel the street's are strewn
And pips beyond computing
On every shoulder but my own
That's fractured from saluting

"Snapshot of Nairobi", written around the middle of the last century (late WW2 or in the lead-up to Independence), by someone whose name I can't remember (and the poem's not on the web).

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

Complete the experience by getting your hair cut while you're there.