The Guadalquivir, the story of the river
The Guadalquivir valley: a land of sun, with hint of the Orient...
For Arab poets, Andalusia was a "land just a step away from paradise". Passionate flamenco, the corrida, and a very photogenic hint of Islam alone are not enough to encapsulate the most southerly of the Spanish provinces. In Andalusia, no town is the same. The Guadalquivir, which crosses it from east to west, reflects these contrasts between the snow-capped sierras, deserts worthy of the Wild West and white beaches flooded with sunlight.
The "great river" of the Arabs
The name Guadalquivir comes from Wadi el Kebir, which means "great river" in Arabic. 602 km long, it rises in the Sierra de Cazorla and meets the Atlantic Ocean (in the Gulf of Cádiz) near Sanlucar de Barrameda. The southern part of the Guadalquivir valley, from Seville to Córdoba, is called the "campina" (the country). This plain covered with cereal crops, cotton fields, vines and olive groves, is punctuated by sizeable market towns. A little before Seville, the succession of low hills of Los Alcores marks the entrance to the eastern part of the valley where fighting bulls are reared. After Seville, the Guadalquivir crosses a marshy region called Las Marismas.
Fed by rainwater in winter and by the melting snows of the Sierra Nevada in summer, the river maintains a considerable regular flow rate throughout the year, providing irrigation and hydroelectric energy.
During the Moorish occupation of Spain in the Middle Ages, the Guadalquivir was navigable as far as Córdoba. But, because of the progressive build-up of sediments, it is now possible only as far as Seville, i.e. a distance of around 80 km.
Seville the joyous and Córdoba the dreamer
The richness of the earth in the valleys around the Guadalquivir and the water which flows down from the mountains of the Sierra Nevada have enabled architects to construct palaces and gardens of great beauty and remarkable harmony. Andalusia was under Muslim rule for seven centuries. But, conquered by Spain in 1492, which had become wealthy on the gold that came to it from the Americas, it very quickly personalised its style through Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque art. It monopolised the artistic limelight in Spain in the 17th century. Seville and Córdoba are the most beautiful testimonies to this "Golden Age".
Close-up on a few dazzling ports of call...
Seville, the fourth largest city in Spain with 700,000 inhabitants, joyous and colourful, lives to the rhythm of the feria, the corrida and the exalted processions of Holy Week. Its riches and attractions are infinite: the ancient minaret of Giralda, the cathedral, the Fine Arts museum, the old quarter of Santa Cruz. Expo '92, which commemorated the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492, gave it an economic boost with 20 million visitors in six months.
Beside a meander in the Guadalquivir, Córdoba, more of a dreamer, reflects the bewitching charm of the Orient. With its great mosque, an essential monument to Muslim architecture and a masterpiece in the history of art with its 850 columns, it is the most beautiful medieval city in Spain.
Closer to the coast, Jerez is a lively, opulent town which has grown rich trading its wine: xérès in French, sherry in English as it is so cherished by the Anglo-Saxon culture. It is also the capital of equestrian art, thanks to its Royal School, and the cradle of flamenco.
Cádiz, on the Costa de la Luz, is a rock in the middle of the sea only attached to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. Fascinating with its narrow streets, its large flower-decked squares designed in the 18th century, its sea wall plummeting sheer into the ocean, it is nicknamed "tacita de plata" which means little silver cup in Spanish. According to legend, beautiful Cádiz was founded by Hercules...
The other rock is Gibraltar, a little piece of England cast up on the Mediterranean shore, which offers a panoramic view over the bay of Algeciras and the African coastline.
Sanlucar de Barrameda is in the front row of this magical spectacle. Caught between the sea on one side and the vines which flourish in the white earth on the other, the port remembers Christopher Columbus who cast off for the Americas here, and Magellan, a few years later, who set out on his long circumnavigation of the globe from here.
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