Saturday in Seville

It is siesta time (for us also!) so I will now try to remember the morning, and finish the whole day later. It was comfortably cool in the early morning, and we leisurely left the hostal at about 9 and found a bakery for coffee and pastry…good coffee, but mediocre pastry - will try a different one tomorrow (we have a high standard from France)…and wandered in the direction of the cathedral and alcazar and found there were long queues, and sold out for days…this is so different from 30 years ago, and from all the amazing cathedrals and monuments we have been visiting this trip too! It is a whole new scene for us - hot, big city, many many tourists…wonderful of course, fabulous buildings, amazing food and so many places to eat and drink.

So I think we have sorted it out - the cathedral and alcazar are booked out on line, but for the alcazar they sell 400 tickets from 9am if you queue (so we’ll try that tomorrow) and you apparently can also queue for the cathedral, but when we went by at about 1 in the heat of the day, there was a long line that would entail standing in the sun for over an hour…that’s when we decided we needed a siesta!!

But we did have fun this morning wandering these streets, looking at all this from the outside and not getting lost. We found our way to the bus station and booked a bus to Granada on Monday, and on the way back stopped for churros and chocolate, found a wonderful market and wandered, gazed and admired there, and stopped for a white wine and gazpacho before retreating to our sanctuary.

I don’t do heat! After the walks on the camino I think I was perhaps less knackered than the others…I still had a spring in my step! But now, in this heat I wilt…but come to life when we sit down and refresh in a bar…we actually had a lovely afternoon. We walked and went to the park outside the alcazar and had kindle time, then when stiff from sitting on park benches, walked to the Plaza de España - an amazing plaza with OTT buildings and towers etc, and horses and carriages with tourists…and then on the way back stopped at a cafe for refreshment and felt revived…then came back to room, for ablutions (Amr) and at about 8.15 we set out for dinner.

We had learned from yesterday that later than that it is hard to get a table anywhere, so we went to our nearby buzzing square - plaza de alfalfa - and went to our chosen place and had to join a wait list, but less than 10 minutes! Success! Had a fabulous evening. I do evenings well…it is light here till almost 10pm, even though further west than UK which would be an hour earlier, it keeps time with the rest of Europe, so it was light but cooler and SO good.

Had a wonderful meal again…they do amazing unusual combos…a salad of tomatoes with burrata, but with onions, endive leaves, and a lemon ice cream and basil oil!! It worked. Also we had my favourite chiperones but this time they were deep fried (not my thing) but on a bed of ratatouille with a fried egg on top - that part was delicious! Also some divine scallops…and perfect pieces of cod. So we were very happy, and in the square there was a succession of buskers - the first ones were great, flamenco dancing and music, really good.

Funny things were during the music a big dog objected and barked, which set off a little dog…and a baby in a stroller clapped with the dancing and castanets…such fun and relaxed…plenty of Spanish people, though of course many tourists like us. About to fade…and face another hot day tomorrow…
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