The church has a beautiful cedar wood reredos (altar facade) and this baptismal font dating back to the 14th century.

After Caceres was conquered by the Spanish in 1227 it's growing prosperity as a free trade town attracted merchants and later aristocracy to settle there. They rivaled each other with stately homes and palaces fortified with watch towers. The ornamental facades displayed shields of the town's leading families. Isabel and Ferdinand the reining monarchs ordered the towers cut lower in 1476 to halt the continual jostling for power. In 1949 Caceres became Spain's fi...

Just inside the Cathedral's entrance for pilgrims are four kings who carry the tomb of Christopher Columbus. His pallbearers represent the regions of Castille, Aragon, Leon, and Navarre. He was buried first in Spain, then in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, then Cuba, and finally when Cuba gained independence from Spain in 1900 - he sailed home again to Spain. This sculpture is about 15 feet tall!!!

Santa Maria de la Sede in Seville! This is the world's largest Gothic Church and the third largest church in Europe (after St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London). When they ripped down a mosque of brick on this site in1401, the Reconquista Christians bragged, "We'll build a cathedral so huge they will take us for madmen", so they built for 120 years!! The high altar piece is 65 feet tall and has 44 scenes from the life of Jesus. Unfortunately it was goi...

The Flaminco Museum put on an exhibition of dance this evening. It was a great performance of dance, flaminco guitar and singing. We were in awe of the power, passion and skill of the performers. In the museum we were shown interesting similarities in other native dances around the world. Seville is the "Home of Flaminco" We were saving this experience for Seville!!