Sunday, May 31 - Exploring Sevilla

Pics: putting out the candles after Mass, flyi9ng buttresses of the Cathedral, the Giralda tower

Breakfast is not served here until nine so we slept in and walked downstairs to find a nice buffet with excellent coffee, breads, fresh OJ and wonderful Sevilla anise-flavored paper-thin cookies.

With guidebook in hand we set out to explore Sevilla. Weather cool and overcast and really quite pleasant compared to yesterday’s inferno. Sevilla in the day and, out of our neighborhood, is very charming, colorful and lively.
We saw a lovely maroon church, Iglesia del Salvador, built on the site of a former mosque, and went inside. A huge towering arched ceiling, a spectacular enormous Baroque guilt altarpiece and Sunday mass being conducted. We sat in the back and watched the rather moving ceremony, complete with organ music, stringed instruments, singing, incense and huge candles Really beautiful!

We walked along narrow cobbled streets lined with fancy shops and noticed large “cherry picker” machines attaching shade cloths between the opposite sides of the streets as this is the beginning of the very hot summer season. There are already huge cloths set up over many of the plazas which make life possible in this hot humid summer climate but make photography difficult!

We went over to the Cathedral which, with the Moorish Giralda tower attached, is the largest gothic building in the world and its third largest cathedral. Plazas with flowers and horse-drawn carriages clopping by surround it and soften somewhat it’s somewhat imposing grey presence. Bob wanted to visit the Archivo de Indias where 80 million documents relating to the 300 year Spanish presence in the Americas are stored. It’s a UNESCO cultural site and quite an amazing sight with row upon row of glass cases filled with filing boxes, much of the documents, maps, records unsorted and un-catalogued as yet. We saw papers signed by Columbus, Cortes and others. Really interesting exhibits, including many references to Santa Bárbara and its presidio!

Feeling peckish by then, it being 1:30, we sat down at a sidewalk café with a spare table in the shade and split a bacon/chicken/tomato/cheese baguette and beers at what turned out to be Flaherty’s Irish pub! Back home for siesta.
Our hotel while lovely inside and with a friendly, helpful staff, is in a pretty rough, trashy neighborhood, and, as I‘ve mentioned, on a pedestrian alley. We’re getting a little anxious about getting out of here on Tuesday morning as we have a 7 AM flight to Madrid and really want to make it and our connection to Miami!

I talked to the nice concierge and he assured me that he would order the taxi for 5 AM on Tuesday morning, but the Casa del Maestro staff aren’t in the hotel overnight…what if the taxi doesn’t appear?? He seemed confident that there would be no problem, but?? We’re planning on being downstairs at 5, with our room key in hand in case we have to use our room phone to call a taxi and also not leaving the hotel until a taxi is in sight…not an easy task since we’re located in the middle of an alley!! Well, we’ll see!!

We went out at 8:30 in search of dinner and found several restaurants that the hotel and Fodor’s suggested, but they were all closed?? Maybe Sunday night is the night restaurants are closed, like Mondays in the US?? Lots of tapas bars were thriving, but we wanted something more substantial and finally found an Italian restaurant that was open and had an OK meal with the usual good inexpensive local red wine. Bought a cono de helado (ice cream cone) on the way home and arrived about eleven.