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)

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...