Thursday, November 3, 2011

A Little Crooked House

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

A BIT OF A FIXER-UPPER ON PLAZA DE LA ENCARNACIÓN.

Our house is not crooked.  It is level, solid, renovated, and in excellent condition.  But many of the houses we pass are not in the same shape.

A VIEW FROM A BALCONY. UNDULATING WALLS.

Given that some of the houses we see around town are anywhere from 100 to over 600 years old, it's no surprise they're bent and twisted.  However, it's a wonder some of the buildings I've seen are still able to stand.

A VIEW FROM ANOTHER BALCONY.
NOTE THE UNINTENDED SWAG TO THE WINDOW TRIM.

Without help, some of the crooked buildings won't be standing much longer. Fortunately, many have been reinforced and only appear to be twisting and collapsing into themselves.

WITH MASSIVE REINFORCING BEAMS INSIDE, THIS CAFÉ WILL BE AROUND FOR A WHILE,
(WHICH PERHAPS GIVES THEM SOME TIME TO IMPROVE THE SERVICE.)

18 comments:

  1. Very cartoon-esque, but there's something really beautiful about each of them.

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  2. I'm sure when I'm 100 years old, I'll be a little crooked too. Still, I find those building charming.
    m.

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  3. Mark:
    Well, by most standards we've always been a bit "bent." But just imagine us at 600 (and, yes I know, I'll get there first).

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  4. It's amazing what a lick of paint can cover up Mitch.

    Those buildings are a bit scary. Is the city built on marsh / swamp-land or something?

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  5. Those crooked buildings make a city, its charm, its people.

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  6. Chris:
    I just figure that's what happens when you give a house a few hundred years to settle. (There is a neighborhood that was claimed from the river about 600 years ago... although, oddly, I couldn't find any crooked houses there.)

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  7. Love architecture no matter if it's 1000's of years old...I'm always amazed at the fact that some things are still around...even if it's a little wonky.

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  8. sophie...^5:
    When we lived in Connecticut, our town had lots of homes from the 1700s and 1800s, and even a few from the 1600s. It amazed me, but nothing prepared me for this. (They were pretty wonky, too!)

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  9. Hope Sevilla isn't vulnerable to the uncertainties of tectonic plate-shifts, or it's all gonna come a-tumbling down.

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  10. Raybeard:
    There's always that chance, but we're are not nearly as at risk as Southern Italy, Greece, or Turkey. And given that Jerry and I moved here from California, I'm not going to give this any more thought right now.

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  11. Some of those buildings made me feel a little alarmed and a little unwell! But they do have a charm of their own.

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  12. Kristi:
    I know what you mean. The abandoned ones aren't as much a concern as the others. It's a little disconcerting at first to enter a brick and mortar building that looks ... fluid.

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  13. Interesting photos! Thanks for sharing them.

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  14. JustAMike:
    Thanks and welcome to the blog! I just got back from lunch and passed a slightly comical crooked house (it looked like the front door was melting). Wish I had seen it sooner. Maybe I'll share some more of these at another time.

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  15. 'WHICH PERHAPS GIVES THEM SOME TIME TO IMPROVE THE SERVICE' I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Priceless.

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  16. Nubian:
    Don't know about now, but we went in for breakfast one morning when we were here in January. I felt like I needed to apologize for being an inconvenience. Maybe it was just a bad day but there are too many other options here for me to bother giving it another try.

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