Monday 11 July 2011

Day 7 – Sevilla and the last sightseeing day (well the last consecutive one)


Day 7 started a little late. The Hotel offered a reasonable breakfast which we could take in our little patio or on the roof-top terrace. It was a lovely day so we took it on the terrace and enjoyed the roof-top views, the sunshine and the bread, pastries, etc. I have to say that cake for breakfast seems a very civilised thing to do (bacon is still a preference though).
Having had our fill we set off for the Cathedral & Giralda - Giralda is the name for the big bell tower that stands next to the churchy bit. AJ said that, after the spiral staircase incident in Segovia, she wasn't going up any towers.
As it happened she didn't have to - the tower was closed for repairs that week. Here's where see a theme repeating. Basically, Segovia Cathedral is very much like the previously visited places only even bigger. It also has even more gold and intricate carving so must have been even scarier and awe-inspiring to the C14th peasants. For us, though, it was more of the same and we would probably have been better off finding something else to do.

Yet more cathedral carving


They did have rooms full of "treasure" though, so even more gold. They can afford to given the amount they charged us to get in...

After that I knew we would have a more interesting time - we went to see the Alcazar which is an old Moorish castle turned Royal Palace. The Alhambra at Granada is unparalleled but this place sits credibly alongside it. The ornamentation and scale isn't the same but neither was it crammed full of tourists so you actually got time to roam around at your will rather than feeling herded. We enjoyed it very much and would recommend it as the best place to visit in town. You could pay extra to visit some upstairs apartments in the place which we didn't do but neither did we feel we'd missed anything...


Sevilla Alcazar (apologies for the leaningness – I have subsidence)

Some more ambling about the old town continued, interspersed with drinks stops and another church. Then it was back to the hotel for a rest. Then, about 4'ish peckishness set in (we'd had nothing since the late breakfast) so we moseyed out for some tapas. Very nice. The evening meal was at another tapas bar, this time for more substantial raciones. The waiter was very good. Whilst we'd ordered individual meals he served the plates up individually so we effectively had big tapas action. At the end of the meal we found out that the guy was from Chile and was, of course, a Liverpool supporter (isn't everyone?). He did a couple of quick lines of YNWA and explained that he'd learned most of his early English from Beatles numbers. He was dead busy which was a shame because we couldn't really chat but I can definitely recommend La Mesquita for good tapas and service.
Then to bed to polish off more sherry and get some kip in prior to the big slob that the next week had in store (well hopefully)

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