Day 6 - To Sevilla

Day 6 was to take us to a potential highlight of the trip - Seville. Certainly the biggest city we were going to see on this trip.  We left Caceres early, trusting to O'Reilly's instructions yet again.  This time I decided not to ask it to send us to the hotel.  This was because I knew that we couldn't park at the hotel, we'd have to drive past.  I also knew that there was a car park not far from the hotel so I got O'Reilly to take us there.  This he did without too much of a slip (there was one attempt to get us to drive down a road that was being dug up - can't blame him for not knowing that).  We got to the car park only to see a sign saying "Completo" - it was full and only open to residents.  Oh dear (or words to that effect).  We drove around for a few minutes and eventually found somewhere to leave the car but it didn't feel like a bona fide parking space so I knew I'd be back...

We trolled over to the hotel and checked in. This hotel is the Amadeus - a small independent place in the old part of town and best described as quaint (or maybe quirky).  It has a musical theme (clue in the name?).  For the first time this trip we were given a 'real' key rather than a piece of plastic and told our room was just round the corner.  Before we even got in the room I thought it was a bit strange because we didn't appear to be on an outside wall - the whole of the room appeared surrounded by the rest of the hotel so I'm thinking "where's our window?".  No problem. 

We walked into the room (which was reasonably compact) and there, on the left hand wall were french doors leading to the tiniest little courtyard (a little larger than an apartment balcony).  It was a nice surprise and we were very happy with it. 

Amadeus Room

Another happiness generating thing was that the hotel had a spare space in the previously 'completo' car park (albeit for a significant fee) so I took it and went and retrieved the car, no problem (O'Reilly helped once again).

Actually, our first sight-seeing in Seville was inside the hotel.  We've never been anywhere quite as individual as this place...

Amadeus Lounge area - note the sherry, centre right

View from Amadeus roof terrace

Hotel having been 'seen' we went out to find coffee. We didn't think we needed anything to eat but we sat at a tapas bar and somehow got persuaded to take 6 assorted tapas plates (like they REALLY twisted our arms...).  Very nice and it all slipped down.  Then we had a wander, leaving the main sights for the next day. 

The tourist map we'd picked up was really confusing though until I worked it out.  Call me conventional but I generally expect a map to show North pointing to the top of the page and it quickly became clear that this map didn't work like that.  However, having sussed that North was to the left (west) of the page the thing started to slip into place and we found our way to the riverbank. 

We did the Museo De Bella Artes which is described as one of the best collections in Spain and is, thankfully, free.  I can think of at least 2 galleries near home that are both better than this was but maybe I'm biased (Brit Art is way better than Spanish art after all - well when you take Picasso, Miro and Dali out of the equation...  Better leave that one before I dig any deeper). 

Once again tiredness took over so we went back to our lovely room for a rest before going out to dinner.  Another fantastic thing about this hotel - FREE SHERRY!!!  I have to admit to more than one trip to the decanter during the course of the late afternoon.   So to dinner - dinner is very easy to do in Seville because decent places to eat seem to be all over the old quarter...  Stay at the Amadeus and you won't have to walk more than 200 yards for some decent scran...