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Published: October 10th 2022
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It’s nice to have the luxury of a kitchen and we breakfast ‘at home’. Unfortunately the long life milk makes my coffee taste disgusting but it’s OK on the cereal. Note to get fresh milk on our way back today!
We’re going on a general orientation tour of the city today so won’t be going inside the two major attractions: the Cathedral and the Alcazaba as we have five days here and we want plenty of time to appreciate them on their own.
It rained early this morning so the streets are wet and it’s a pleasant temperature as we set off at 9.30am. Navigating our way through the narrow streets we make our way towards the river an iconic 19th century bridge, Puente de Triana.
A little further on we find the Nao Victoria, an exact replica of the wooden ship Victory which was the first ship to circumnavigate the world 500 years ago. Apparently it’s made of fibreglass but it looks very realistic.
We are making our way towards the Torre del Ora, but Ian spots an exhibition of large decorated motorbike helmets above us. We go up to take a closer look…actually they are
skulls, not helmets. It reminds me of Mexico and then we spot that it is an exhibition of Mexican art. It won’t be long till Halloween and ‘the day of the dead’ so I guess that’s what it’s all about.
Now on to the tower which we can climb for views of the city and it’s also a naval exhibition. As luck would have it, it’s one of those places that is free on Mondays. The young man on the desk asks what country we are from and then promptly tells us to cough up six euros. Isn’t it free in Mondays, I ask in Spanish. Oh yes, apparently it is…so we don’t have to give him six euros after all! He grumpily tells me that we could offer it as a donation…strangely I think we may well have done just that if he hadn’t tried it on in the first place!
The mid tower exhibition contains lots of ships models, naval paintings and other paraphernalia. At the top of the tower we have some good views of the river and across towards the Cathedral. I don’t have the stomach to climb the outer stairs but Ian happily
does so. Now to the exhibition room on the ground floor which contains a selection of naval navigation equipment and various canons.
Continuing south, we reach the Mara Luisa park which is stuffed full of leafy plazas and water features. This leads on to a major highlight of Seville, the Plaza de Espana which was built in 1928 for the 1929 Spanish-American World Fair exhibition. It’s an eclectic mix of Spanish, Baroque, Renaissance, Moorish and Spanish revival architectural styles.
The Plaza is a semi-circlular shape and the building is accessed via four bridges over a moat (little Venice) which represent the ancient kingdoms of Spain. In the centre is the Vicente Traver fountain.Many tiled alcoves were built around the plaza, each representing a different province of Spain. We are able to climb to the first floor for even better views of the Plaza. Despite it being very busy, it doesn’t feel overcrowded…though this may nit be the case in a couple of days as it’s ’ Hispanic Day’, a national holiday to celebrate Christopher Columbus’ first arrival in America.
We’ve walked around 4km, the cloud has started to lift and it’s now getting quite hot. We decide
it’s time to start heading back. Passing the university, which we will visit another day, we head back towards the main shopping arcades and back towards the little plaza near to our accommodation. The restaurant we ate in yesterday is closed but there are others and we flop down in the one next door.
Five hours walking and eight km under our belts, it’s time for lunch and siesta! We are both having fish dishes today. Mine is the house special, cod in tomato and cream sauce with fried potatoes. Ian’s is also cod but a kind of cod cake made up of scrambled egg, onion and potato.
Back to the room for siesta. Not sure quite what happened but siesta somehow turned into bedtime!
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