Sevilla, Spain
Alan's Log:
Joan's Log:
We shared a rental
car with David and Tni and all
went up to Sevilla (Seville) together for a few days. Alan and
I rented a tiny apartment (with wifi!) right in the center of the
city, 
We were next to Calle Sierpes (Street of Snakes), the main shopping street in the Santa Cruz district. Within walking distance of the cathedral and the Real Alcazar. It was incredibly hot there, a searing dry heat well into the 100's everyday. Seville has been called the "frying pan of Spain" and is the hottest city in Europe. Fans are a fact of life in Seville, nearly every other person had one and was fanning as they were walking, talking on cells phones or sitting in tapas bars. Of course they were a fashion statement and women had fans to match their outfits, we even saw very macho looking men with fans, in macho black. I discovered the need for one right away, as you can see there were stores devoted to only fans. The one I bought was my constant companion and got quite a workout! Another fact of life in Seville is siesta, understandably they take it seriously there. From around 1:00 till 5:00 the shops close and the streets empty as the city naps during the hottest part of the day.
The cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral in Europe. I haven't been in a church for about 20 years but this one seemed worth exploring. The sense of space and height in the cathedral is captured in the light from the upper windows and is impressive today and must have been literally awe-inspiring in its day. This cathedral is built with massively thick pillars and walls, and only a few flying buttresses supporting the top dome. Nevertheless the creation of visible space towards the heavens is quite spectacular. The cathedral contains the elaborate elevated tomb of Christopher Columbus being carried by 4 pall bearers.
The Alcazar Real (Royal Fortress) was a gem! A palace built in the latter days of the Moorish empire as their power was waning. You would never know it from the interior. It was later the home of Spanish Royalty.
Walking through sent me into a story-book world of Aladdin, Ali Baba and the 40 thieves and I pretended to be Sheherazade wondering through the gardens in the moonlight! The palace was a combination of stunning interior courtyards and cool, dark rooms flanked by graceful arches, all intricately carved and covered with mosaics. The gardens, full of orange trees and palms, were as beautiful as the palace, with terraces, fountains and pavilions.
Sadly the camera batteries died or we would have added another dozen pictures here. The Real Alcazar is the most spectacular palace we have seen to date.
The next day we visited the Fine Art Museum, which housed only Spanish art, mainly of the Sevilla School. It was a beautiful small museum and contained many very fine works by artists I had never heard of. The most impressive was The Death of a Matador.
One night we planned to go to a Flamenco Show, Joan really wanted to see a more authentic form of the dance. We had an address, and a map, but could we find it! We wandered down narrower and narrower alleys, that would suddenly open out into small plazas. Each plaza had a bar or two and open air cafes. We ended the evening refreshed but frustrated!
We finally found the location in the old Jewish quarter, deep in a labyrinth of tiny side alleys. By the time we found it, the show was sold out for the night, but we bought tickets for the next evening and carefully retraced our steps back to the apartment.
The performance the next evening was held in the interior courtyard of a small palace with vine covered walls, illuminated with lanterns and candles. It was a small venue with about 60 seats, there was one guitar player, one singer and clapper, and one dancer for the entire performance. The dancer was breathtaking, with her proud, soulful movements. Flamenco originated with the gypsies, but was also influenced by Moorish and Spanish folklore.
We also visited the Plaza de Toros (bull ring) not to see a bull fight but to see the building, one of the oldest in Spain. Bull fighting has become very popular again in Spain, the most popular matadors are super stars. We took a guided tour of ring and the interior, which housed a small museum. The tour also included the chapel where the matadors pray before every fight, and stables where the horses of the toreadors and picadors are kept. Although we are completely against bull-fighting as a sport, the deeply rooted history and pageantry of the sport was fascinating to me.
The people of Sevilla love their spanish wine and tapas and we did too. Tapas bars were everywhere! Each one a bit different from the next. We even found a Chinese restaurant, where we decided to take a break from tapas, besides we hadn't had Asian in almost a year, and who should we bump into there, but David and Tni!!! They had the same idea!
On our last night there we treated ourselves to dinner in a fine old established restaurant. Fun, we both had lamb, mine was lamb chops with roasted garlic and Alan had Lamb stuffed with spinach and pine nuts in a honey sauce. The stand out was flan, with a bitter orange sauce, to die for!
We took an early morning bus from Sevilla back to Rota, where we stayed for one more day and did our big monthly grocery provisioning at the largest super mercado in town. We pick up things here and there but our major grocery shopping trips are often a challenge and adventure combined, this one involved walking to town with our 2 collapsible grocery carts, finding a taxi to take us to the grocery store, shopping, packing everything in our carts, phoning for a taxi and waiting for it to arrive. Load the Taxi. Taxi back to the marina. Unload the Taxi, then transfer the overflowing carts and bags back on to the boat, whew! One of us guards the pile, while the other makes the trips up and down the pier to Moonstruck. Quite a long process in all, not that I'm complaining, it's just one of the trade-offs we have in exchange for living this lifestyle! For me its always fun to explore the supermarkets with the many unfamiliar products and labels, I always find something new and different to cook or add to my pantry. Plus the prices are fantastic, especially for wine! olives and olive oil.
Next......We are off down the bay a little ways, to an anchorage off El Puerto Santa Maria. We have been spoiling ourselves since arriving in Europe, staying in Marinas every night. We need to get back into the habit of anchoring out!