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Published: April 11th 2018
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The train trip from Cordoba to Seville is only about an hour, passing small white villages set amongst vast orchards of Seville orange trees. The oranges are sadly too bitter to eat and are used mainly for oils and perfumes with tonnes being exported to the UK each year to be made into marmalade. Seville is another picturesque city with a massive gothic cathedral dominating the centre. The cathedral is apparently tne 3rd largest after St Peter's in Rome and St Paul's in London and is the largest gothic cathedral in the world. We struck gold this time with our hotel being a beautiful period building about 75m from the cathedral. We didn't spend time in the hotel but got out to visit the Cathedral which contains the tomb of Christopher Columbus. The climb up the Giralda tower is well worth while for the stunning views of the city but the bells almost deafen you if they ring while you're up there. After an hour or so in the cathedral we took a wander around the Barrio St Cruz, the old Jewish quarter an area of whitewashed buildings with wrough-iron fretwork and window boxes full of flowers. Some of the lanes
are known as kissing lanes because they are so narrow that the balconies above are almost touching. Orange trees abound in the narrow lanes and being in full blossom now the scent hangs heavy in the air. As has become our habit, we stopped in at a bar, this one near the cathedral, for wine and tapas. The walls of the bar were decorated with heads of bulls that had fought in the corrida, the bullring, so it was slightly disconcerting to have their doleful gaze upon us as we ate and drank. Around 9.00pm we found a little restaurant down a side alley in the Barrio and had the local delicacy, oxtail stew for dinner, washed down with a couple of glasses of rioja.
The next day didn't really dawn at all as it was cold and wet, but undaunted, we queued to see the AlCazar, the oldest still occupied palace in Europe. Although it was built for Christian monarchs, it was constructed by Moors and has very strong Moorish influences with arched doorways, all the rooms covered in tiles, and beautiful gardens. We wandered through there for a couple of hours then decided to utilise the other
half of our cathedral ticket from the previous day and visited the cathedral El Salvadore. This one was built in the baroque style, not one of my favourites, too many creepy looking cherubs for my liking. Then, given the appalling weather, we decided the Spanish custom of siesta was a good idea. Several hours later the rain had stopped and the sun was shining again so we took a stroll along the guadalquivir river, past the corrida before finding another little tapas bar for dinner. Thereafter we took in a flamenco show at the flamenco museum getting back to the hotel about midnight to receive a message from #1 son that he had had a car accident. Only a fender bender and not his fault I hasten to add but I needed to make a call to the insurance company to authorise him to act on my behalf so finally got to bed about 2.30am.
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Lisa
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I want your life!
Wow, that looks amazing!