The Road from Santiago

  A short walk but, I hope, an interesting one as we progress along the Avenida de Jerez towards the centre of Seville. We left Seville, yesterday, making progress in the Age of Reason. Things boomed in the nineteenth, with a ceramics factory being established in La Cartuja and the period 1843-68 seeing a construction boom which included the Isabel II bridge, street lighting and pavements.  The Museo de Bellas Artes opened in 1904 in 1929 the city hosted the Ibero-American Exposition.  Population wise the city grew from 100,000 in 1842 to 684,000 today, with above 20% growth in the 1920s, 40s, 50s and 70s. We are passing the Autismo Andalucía Federación Andaluza de Asociaciones de Padres con hijos Autistas. https://www.autismoandalucia.org/   You know where you stumble into something and don’t feel qualified to comment. About nine months ago things got tasty.  A concerted one star attack on the place suggested they were not supportive of autistic kids any more. ...

  The thing about Spain was it was close enough to be real and far enough away to be unfamiliar.  Being across the Pyrenees it was ripe, once they had done with all that implacable Catholic Empire bit, into being a land of exotic gipsies and brigands who would fight Napoleon at the drop of a hat, while being chivalric to capture English m’ladies - who were having quiet enough trouble with bed bugs in inns and surly muleteers.  Welcome to Seville. Seville dates back to the 8th century when the Phoenicians turned up to do their thing. The Romans, under the command of Scipio Africanus, did for the Carthaginians in 206BC and sent veteran soldiers to the area. Hispalis, as it was known, grew and was the birth place of Emperors Trajan and Hadrian.  I’m not sure if we will go near it but five arches of aqueduct do remain in the city. After various Vandals and Visigoths the Moors besieged Seville in 712 and Prince Abd al-Aziz made the place capital of al-Andalus until his co...