Saturday 11.06.2010



Civil Seville

Aaahhh Se-BEE-yah. Seville has been described as the soul of Spain. It is bullfighting, flamenco, ladies with flowered hats and fancy fans, and gentlemen with sweaters draped over shoulders and the occasional fedora. It is fish and ham, cerveza and sangria, Moors and Christians and people out and about.

Another spectacular day this morning when we roll out, and Mary has taken Seville as her own. John does most of the pre-planning and so generally has an idea of what will happen in each destination, but this time Mary takes charge of the weekend.


There is a little café down the street from our hotel where we sit under orange trees with a croissant and coffee. John brought the laptop to catch up on some work and Mary wanders the neighborhood finding post cards and stamps and then flitting back to our table for a sip of coffee and then gone again. This is her element.

Next is the Rick Steves walking tour of the interesting part of the city that just happens to be our neighborhood. It is really a lily pad hop from one scenic square to the next with fountains, tile benches and a church around every corner. And orange trees. There are orange trees, loaded with fruit, along every sidewalk and shading every square and wide spot in the road. There are probably tens of thousands of them in this part of the city alone. The buildings are mostly white, trimmed in shades of mustard yellow and accessorized with jewelry of wrought iron and red flowering bougainvilleas.

The big sights along this route are the Cathedral and the Alkazar, a Moorish castle that has held various big shots since it was built more than a thousand years ago. With Mary in charge, there will be none of that. Instead we opt for a shady table in a sunny square where we spend an hour or two with a couple omelets and sharing a “jarra” of Sangria. There are tourists around, but mostly Spanish speaking, and the majority of the folks who are the subject of our people watching are locals enjoying a lovely Saturday afternoon. There are also weddings all over town so there is the occasional parade of people wearing their fancy finest moving from one event to another.


The rest of the afternoon was a lazy stroll through the busier “shopping” part of town, around the Plaza de Toros and on to the Guadalquiver River beyond. We tried to find as many different streets as we could, but we kept recognizing things we had seen before so we don’t actually have our directions down pat quite yet. We pass a recommended restaurant that Mary approves for tomorrow night (No white tablecloths or uppity waiters!) and start to squirm our way back to our hotel.


When we turn the TV on in our room we see the Pope speaking to the faithful in Santiago de Compostelo where we were ten days ago. He is standing in the facility they were hustling to complete when we were there, and the crowds are seated where we were standing. It’s fun for us to see. John has spent the last six weeks with Charles Dickens on his Kindle so he downloads the latest Lee Child novel for some entertainment.


Dinner tonight is going to be tapas and wine wherever we see fit (remember who is in charge). The process isn’t quite as easy as it was in San Sebastian, but we manage to get a variety of things to eat and some nice red wine to wash it all down at a couple places up the street from our hotel. There is still a learning curve because everyplace does things just a little differently and the language tends to get in the way of asking for detailed instructions. We have our customer words and the waiters have their waiter words, but once either of us strays too far we just get into head shaking. We’ll survive.


We stop for one last beer at the little bar right around the corner from our hotel and it is packed with 20-year-olds. There are a hundred kids inside and spilling onto the street and our presence raises the average age by at least a year. We have one beer on the outside of the open door where it is less smoky and make our escape.


Today’s Picture: Sunny Saturday with Sangria in Sevilla, Spain