Sevilla walking tour

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Sevilla Walking tour

Decided to take a walking tour this morning; I arrived about 15 minutes early, and could tell the touristas from the Sevillians immediately. Cameras at the ready, backpacks, walking shoes, and a very different sense of style - more earthy, less flash. I want to think I fit in, but since some other tourists immediatly joined me, I strongly suspect I am fooling myself.

The tour was fun. We touristas took turns walking together and getting to know one another. We had one couple from Vancouver BC, a group of three and a couple from California, one couple from Switzerland, and a couple from England. The couple from England were a blast. I found out that the
ubiquitous orange trees produce bitter oranges; sweet orange tree blossoms don't smell (as much), so Sevilla has optimized for good smelling trees. The bitter oranges make great marmalade, so a lot of the oranges are gathered up and sent to Great Britain.

We wandered through the old town, with its narrow winding streets, and peeked in to look at a duchess's garden. We walked by a convent which makes lovely muffins sold by the dozen (and saw a
cute nun who walked by and winked at us), and ended up at the Sevilla Alcazar. Most tours are €50, this one was €12. It was good and informative, and was 2 hours which was just right. The tours we passed were 20 or 30 extremely bored looking people, ours was about 10 happy interested people.

I then grabbed some lunch, and went to tour the Alcazar. It was beautiful, and very different from the Granada Alcazar. This one was built to mimic the style of the Moors, and had a lot of images of animals and people which Islam frowns upon. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of power after the first couple pictures.

I took a siesta, charged my camera battery, and then went on a river walkabout. Got some great river scenes, but did not find the market I was looking for. I will try again tomorrow.

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