Another hot sunny day in this awesome city.
Having not been organised enough to book a tour of the Alcazar, mostly because we hadn’t realised we’d need to, we had most of today free.
Simon dropped his computer onto our beautiful but unforgiving marble floor a couple of days ago. It’s still limping along but the screen is shattered, so we decided that each couple would do their own thing today, ours being computer shopping. Our hotel is beautifully situated right in the middle of town, surrounded by shops. We tried two small electronic stores with no luck, but found just what he wanted at El Corte Inglés. Unfortunately, they only had the display model and none available to sell, and suggested we try the other store across town.
We decided going for a 30 minute walk was as good a use of our time as any, so set off. We saw a lot of interesting things as we went, including not only churches and famous buildings, but an ancient aqueduct, a religious procession, and a giant piece of modern art called the mushroom.
Unfortunately because of the heat, I was starting to get blisters by the time we reached the other store. We tackled one of the seemingly dozens of white middle aged men in suits in the electronics section, and asked for what we wanted. Again, they had the floor model but none they could actually sell us.
I then had a cursory look for a necklace I wanted, but quickly gave up. A quick trip to the loos (on every floor! Clean, no queue, toilet paper, soap: bliss!) and then it was time to bail. The state of my feet meant I wasn’t keen to walk. We looked at Uber but it was going to be €25, so then we looked on Google maps for public transport options. Lo and behold, there was a bus stop just across the road that took us straight to our destination. Five minutes later having paid our €2.80, we were sitting in air conditioned comfort, making our way back to our hotel like a local. Too easy.
Lunch at the hotel, a quick nap and plasters to my feet, and a couple of hours later we were walking across town to the theatre for a flamenco show.
As we crossed the river, a seemingly harmless dark haired elderly lady tried to give me sprig of rosemary. Innocent enough, but I’ve been burned by this before. The last time I was in Seville, twenty years ago with my mum and my eldest daughter, someone had given me a sprig of rosemary. I thought it was a quaint and generous local custom, especially as the woman then took my hand and started telling me my fortune. But then she asked me for money. So, this time I just exclaimed ¨No!¨and hurried on. We’ve had a few people ask us for money here, while eating at restaurants outside for example, but no one has seemed threatening. Similarly, there are a handful of beggars, often with dogs, but this was the first person whom I assumed was a gypsy. Obviously I could be wrong. She gave up after I walked off, unlike the ones on the trains in Paris, who are quite persistent.
The Flamenco theatre is in the Triana district, famous for its ceramics. It’s tiny, the same size as the old residential buildings on either side in the same block. It was only about ten seats wide. The show was great, I loved it, it was far more my thing than the Portuguese fado, even though they are related, as is the tango of South America. There was one guitar player, two singers, and two dancers. There was only one woman, one of the dancers. It was as emotional as the fado, but it also had happiness and excitement, not just melancholy. The woman was dressed just like you’d imagine, with flowers in her hairdo, and a long frilly skirt. The dancing had a lot in common with tap dancing, and they also clapped along. No castanets though. The dancing couple danced together but also separately, when he did his solo act it reminded me of bullfighting. Everyone was very expressive, and there was a great deal of chat, including shouts of “Olé!” Fantastic. The show lasted around 90 minutes, and it was the first of three for the evening for that troupe. They must be very fit, the dancing looked extremely strenuous.
We wandered around the local area after the show, waiting for the restaurant we had a dinner reservation in to open. It was Saturday evening and once again, town was very busy. We saw three newly weds having their photos taken around the bridge where we had our pre dinner drinks.
Across the street from us was a gorgeous old building, you had to look closely to see that it was museum on the Spanish Inquisition. I wasn’t expecting that!
Our dinner was at a very popular restaurant right beside the river. The food was OK and the service average although they were friendly enough. It seemed to me that no one wanted to serve the English speakers.
After dinner we wandered back through town to our hotel. It was 11:30 by then and things were in full swing, locals of all ages were rubbing shoulders at restaurants and tapas bars. The temperature dropped from 31 degrees down to a very pleasant 23 once it got dark, no wonder they embrace the nightlife here.