We are used to calling this place Seville. But over here it is called Sevilla. We decided this morning to ‘get out of the car’ and stay in the Sevilla area touring places here. We have had a wonderful time doing a lot of walking. Denise and I both slept in late. I woke up at 8:30 AM and Denise was still howling at the moon. She has a nasty cold and really struggled last night with it keeping us both up longer than we had planned. Anyway…we were out the door by 10:00 AM catching a bus to the center of Sevilla. The center sits on a river and you can see across the river where the Olympic Village was. Along the river you can see where the rowing events were held. I would have liked to have toured the Olympic Park. But Zella thinks it has been turned into an Amusement Park with rides and stuff. It looked like part of it might be that way. And it looked closed from a far.
We ended up touring, in great detail, the Alcazar. This is a huge ‘castle’ that is occupied by the Spanish Royal Family. Apparently it is one of 14 palaces that the Royals own and use. They must have a hard life you know!? The architecture and grounds of this place was pretty amazing. Although the Spanish hate to remember the fact that the Moors had a significant place in their history, many of the architectures have an Arabic look to them. The building is full of stamped, colored, pressed…you name it…tiles and more tiles. They are extremely beautiful as you will be some of the pictures we took. Within the walls of the palace are large ‘gardens’. This place (Sevilla) is full of orange trees! They are everywhere. But their gardens had trees of all kinds. Very lush. Very green. And very beautiful. The one unfortunate thing is that they have many, many fountains and pools through out the complex but the fountains have no water flowing. Thus the little water found in the bottom of the fountains or pools was quite dirty and not pretty. Having water flowing would have brought an even greater beauty to this place. Nonetheless, it was a couple of hours well spent seeing how the other half lives in Spain!
After the Alcazar visit, we meandered down some streets to find a Tapas eatery. We found a low cost one for the area and stepped inside. None of us had ever ordered Tapas. Tapas are small plates of food that you just order a la carte. So all of us ordered a couple of Tapas each and then shared with each other. I had a ham sandwich, a shrimp fritter and a plate of Baby Squids (deep fried). Pretty good. I forget what Denise ordered. But her plates were yummy also. The odd thing around here is all the shanks of pork hanging from the ceilings with the pig hoof still on. They don’t cook these meats over here. The cure them. It looks odd. I have a picture that you will see below of one where it is set up to be carved. But it tastes pretty good on sandwiches and stuff.
After lunch, Zella had a Rick Seves Tour book. In it there was a walking tour that we did for the next hour or so. It was really fun. While walking we came to the area where the real ‘Don Juan’ lived. There was a statue of the atheist, sex addict dude. Denise snuggled up to it for a picture. Made us smile. We also saw some wonderful Spanish architecture among the many plazas that we passed by.
To end our touring for the day, we went to the Plaza de Espana. This is a huge plaza and building that was built in 1929 to bring all the Spanish speaking nations together for a huge celebration for Spanish speaking nations. I would assume that it was a magnificent site in its day. And it still is. But due to economics over here, it is starting to get run down. Flags from nations and Spanish provinces are torn and not kept up. You can see the building starting to deteriorate. I hope the Spanish government gets it together and keeps this place up as it is pretty cool to look at.
After we had spent a good while there, we needed to get on a bus to our hotel. No banos publicos! Plus we were all tired of walking. But the weather was sunny and cool, unlike the forecast of rain from the day previous. So it turned out REALLY nice.
This evening, we jumped in the car to go to dinner. The Grieve's do not eat out much and really miss American food. So we ended up at an American restaurant in a mall. Denise and I had a plate of nachos to share and a bottle of water each. Price? 14 euros....about $20! Pretty expensive. Such is life over here.
Well, we are going to Cadiz tomorrow to visit this coastal town. Early start for over here 8:00 AM. I had better get to bed based upon this mornings experience!
Adios.....
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