Cathedral & Alcazar

Cathedral & Giralda

We overslept, waking around 0800.  Perhaps it was due to our room window opening into the courtyard which meant we had no direct sunlight.  We had been relatively unaffected by jetlag so far, despite having flown from the opposite side of the globe.

We walked to Plaza Alfalfa for a simple breakfast of grilled bread rolls with heaps of butter plus jam.  And it was a choice of milky coffee or milky tea (with no water added).

Our sightseeing started with a walk to the Cathedral with its famous 104m high bell tower known as Giralda. The tower was completed in 1198 as the minaret for the Grand Mosque of the city.  The mosque was also converted into a cathedral after the city was recovered by the Christians.

The interior of the cathedral was truly impressive.  It was very ornate in Gothic style.  It had a courtyard to one side, with citrus trees growing in it.  Christopher Colombus is believed to be buried in a tomb near the entrance.

We walked up the Giralda.  Quite unusually, the ascent wasn’t by steps but by a high-ceilinged ramp, so that a person on horse back could ride all the way to the top.  Only the Christian addition at the very top was equipped with steps (just 17 steps) to access the bells.

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Kim is quite anti with the wealth of the church and he did his usual spiel about how clergy brainwash the lay people so as to control them.  He was grumpy all morning, supposedly because of the endless crowds in this touristy city.  His foul mood was getting upsetting for me, in the extreme.

We had lunch nearby at a place called Altamira.  As soon as we had ordered, we noticed the neighbouring restaurants had set meals for less.  Damn!  Our paella was small and chicken salad even smaller.  As we left, we noticed even more cheap set meal deals nearby.

Alcazar

The Alcazar was built in as the castle for King Peter of Castile, on the site of the Muslim fortress.  What we see has evolved from about 500 years of construction resulting in an eclectic mish-mash of Muslim and Spanish styles.

The gardens at the Alcazar were delightful.  We spent some time walking along the wall at the end before exiting.

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Evening

After a rest till around 1830, we promenaded on the city’s two main shopping streets.  It was busy and there were some nice shops for window-shopping.

Having been caught out by a bad lunch choice, we were intent not to make any hasty decisions for dinner. We had thought of going to the restaurant next door to our lunch spot but got way-laid by a reasonably-priced tapas bar.

We had a decent spread of tapas:  broadbeans with baby squid; baba ghanoush; sliced pork loin with yummy salty sauce; deep fried squid rings; mushroom stuffed with cheese; deep fried prawns; and salty chicken kebabs.  And being tourists in Spain, we naturally ordered sangria, complete with floating chopped fruit on top.

After that delicious meal, we rounded it off with an ice-cream on the way back to our hostal.

Attractive buildings on the streets of Seville.