Day 6: June 19 (Seville)

Today's entry might be a little short.  That is because we slept until 11:00 am! Yay. Our first good night's sleep. We really needed it. We were worried that the breakfast served on the other side of the hotel courtyard would wake us up, but it didn't happen. Our cavelike room was perfect for sleeping.

Fruit in a fountain

We got coffee down the street at a place that looked like an old time confectionary store.  Everything was displayed perfectly.  The waitresses wore little uniforms.  We then headed back to the old town area.  Neil had downloaded a podcast tour of the barrio Santa Cruz onto his ipod touch.  We hoped that the directions would be good enough to keep us from getting lost again.  We each shared an earbud, which meant that we had to stay together or we pulled each other's earbuds out of their ear.  To be honest, we did not do so well in coordinating our movements.  The tour went well, however.  The podcast was fairly clear and we kept on course without getting seriously lost.  We went through a maze of tiny streets with beautiful courtyards.  The podcast informed us of the repurposing of many of the buildings; ex-synagogues now churches, ex-banker's mansions now government buildings.  There were many examples of mudejar architectural design.  There were even old Roman columns jutting up from the weeds in an empty lot between two buildings.  We saw the tavern where Don Juan reportedly recounted his adventures, the house of the painter Murillo, and more.  Neil was fascinated by a fountain in one of the beautiful and refreshing plazas along the back wall of the Alcazar.  A small fruit (maybe a pit) was floating right in the middle of an upward stream of water from the fountain.  The pit remained in place even when Neil tried to disturb the stream!  It was very stable. Finally, the mystery of why we got lost and could not find our way back with the map our first night in Seville became clear.  The main street we had been looking for had different names on different sides of the street.  The name we saw that night was not the name on the map.

Roman columns in Barrio Santa Cruz

We stopped for a late lunch at Cafe Levies at the edge of the barrio.  I cooled off with a lemonade and we shared a salad and some ham on a baguette.  At another table, an orange fell out of a tree and hit a diner smack on the head.  She jumped a mile and everyone else (her friends, other diners, and the workers) laughed.  We finished up around 5 pm.

Back at the hotel, I was very depressed because my feet were really hurting.  I rested and checked out some of the photos on the camera while Neil got some scissors from the hotel clerk.  Apparently, the clerk was very friendly because Neil was gone a while.  When Neil got back, he told me he had been practicing his spanish.  He and the clerk had talked about the real estate market, favorite music groups (the clerk loved the Doors!) and more, including his recommendation about the local flamenco scene.  As a result, we had tickets to the early flamenco show at El Arenal, in a neighborhood near the bullring. After some foot retaping and a bit of laundry, we set off to find the flamenco show.

The stage at the flamenco show

We found the show without problem.  I had sangria and enjoyed the dancing very much.  The dancers were various ages but none really young.  Neil thought the singing reminded him of the synagogue experiences of his youth.  While I was in the restroom after the performance, Neil bought a set of castanets from a vendor outside.  He showed us how to make them work.  We tried, but it is harder than it looks.  I will have to practice.

We walked back through town and ventured into the edge of Barrio Santa Cruz again, retracing some of our earlier path.  It was beautiful and warm.  We had dinner in a place on Plaza Dona Elvira, where we had pimientos with tuna and some light dish with pork whose name I cannot remember.  It was all very good.  The waiter spoke very good English.  He showed Neil how to roll the bottle of the beer he ordered on its side because of the extra frothiness of that particular brand.  He told us that he had studied English in school and in college, but had learned more about speaking during two weeks of waiting tables.  Our restaurant was closing as we ate; it was 10:00 pm on a Sunday.  Our walk back through town was full of life at this hour.  Walking next to the Alcazar and the Cathedral, we were in the midst of lots of people, including little kids playing, enjoying the evening.  Most restaurants were still open and their tables were full.

A tricky local beer with dinner

We tried a completely unknown route which took us back to the hotel.  It worked exactly as we thought.  We seem to be getting the hang of navigating Seville just as we are getting ready to leave. There was some kind of political protest or rally going on at the Plaza Encarnation near our hotel.  It looked pretty unorganized but still going strong at 11:00 pm.  I was glad to have switched to our quiet interior room.