I am up and out early, walking around the cathedral, photographing the gargoyles.
After breakfast at the little café we wander slowly down along river to the Isabelle II Bridge, past the bullfighting ring, to the bus station to get tickets for Saturday morning to Portugal.
This one sentence takes us till 12:00 noon.
After buying our tickets we stop at Meson Serranito for a drink, two glasses of Sangria are cheaper than water. Cool, fruit, probably better for us than plain old water, I figure.
The bars here all celebrate the bullfighters, but also the great bulls. It seems every bar has bull heads mounted on the walls, uniforms of great fighters rest in glass cases.
We spend an enjoyable half-hour watching the Roma rosemary-fortune telling scam I told you about two days ago. The ensuing arguments and disgusted shrugs; people throwing the rosemary down and stomping on it, the yelling, cursing Roma… all great fun.
We can now navigate the maze of streets by memory, using the tile plaques as a guide. There are tile plaques everywhere, made for every thing. Wine bottles, historic landmarks, bull fights, just ones for beauty. The religious ones seem to dominate, a lot of them in blue and white, but many in color as well.
So we have it memorized now, from the cathedral to home: go to the corner of the palace wall, up the alley, right at the white fountain. Turn left at Jesus on the cross (he is looking left), turn right at Weepy Jesus, left at Shocked Mary, through the plaza with the red fountain, hook a left, to the Blanco tiles, left then left down the next alley.
Well, after wandering the morning away, we head around and up, to the cathedral.
This is the other “must see” sight in Sevilla.
So, let me back up here and tell you a story, one in which I had a bit of fun, got cussed out by very hot, really angry people, did a really smart thing, and in which you can learn a little lesson that works in a lot of situations.
The huge Cathedral is called Santa Maria de la Sede. In short: it is the third largest church in Europe. St. Peters in Rome, and St. Paul’s in London are larger if you are keeping score.
There was a mosque here, but they tore it down around 1400 and built this huge cathedral which took over 100 years to complete. They saved the minarete from the original mosque and turned it into the Giralda Bell Tower. It has a ramp up, instead of stairs, because the Imam would ride a horse up to do the call to prayer, five times a day. It turns out is is an easy walk up. The other really cool thing is that Columbus’ tomb is here, and they did the DNA tests to confirm it
As you can imagine, this is a popular place to visit. It opens at 11:00, when the sun is already high. There is an entrance line, on the south side of the cathedral, god bless them, that operates on Spanish time which means you stand for an hour or more in the direct sun waiting to buy a ticket to get in.
But…
But. You can go to the next cathedral up, called Inglesia Del Salvador. It is the second largest cathedral in Sevilla, and so who goes to see number two?
The loser, right?
But the same ticket that gets you into the number one cathedral also gets you into number two.
Think about it for a minute.
The same ticket.
Works.
Both ways.
So we walked past the long, hot line to Inglesia Del Salvador, walked directly in the door where the ticket lady was sitting talking with the security guard. I plunked down my €8 and they were so busy that they sat and talked with us for ten minutes about this and that.
I have to tell you, this cathedral was im-press-ive. Beautiful, huge, three-dimensional alters and carvings that towered high over us. I don’t know how they do it. The photos below just do not do justice to any of it, I just tried to capture little parts I thought were cool.
As we left (we were one of two couples there) the guard made sure to tell us, “Do NOT wait in the line at Santa Maria, you go right in!”
So, we head back four blocks, and start cutting right in through the line to the entrance guard.
This is when we got roundly scolded, then yelled at, then cussed out even though I was holding the ticket in hand and waving it in peoples’ faces as we “pardoned” our way through the sweaty crowd.
Sure enough, we got to the guard, and he bowed a little with a smile, and with a sweep of his hand opened a special door to usher us in, and out of sight and sound of the cursing crowd.
And that, my friends, is the lesson here.
You see, I may be a bit of an over-planner of things, but this is when it comes in handy. For I did a little reading ahead of time, and picked this very tip up from someone else who had done it.
So now you know, if you ever happen to be in Sevilla.
It also works in Florence, Italy, the Castles in Germany, the Vatican, the Louvre and Orsay in Paris, and so many other places. Drop me a comment or email if you want to know about a particular place.
So we walked around the cathedral, saw Columbus, climbed the ramp up the minarete-bell tower, and thought of what a waste of good money the gold and silver jeweled crowns and scepters in the treasury are.
By now it was hot and later afternoon. Time for a tapas break and wine by the hotel. I tried breaded shrimp, salad of some sort, and tomatoes with cheese.
We moved on and spent the entire afternoon siesta at the Los Corales Gastro Bar, in the Plaza del Salvadore where they had a fast WiFi connection and decent wine and cold water with gas.
I had a grilled pork tenderloin with bacon, goat cheese and foie sauce. Yum! After all, what goes best with pork but bacon?
The menu had an item I wanted to try, called “small squid of hook in your ink over black tagliatelle and paprika oil."
Squid of hook i your ink. Hum.
I wonder what the hook tastes like?
Three wines, two waters, tapas, air conditioning and decent WiFi, all for for €15 … can you beat that deal?
We walked the streets until dinner time. We stumbled across an Italian place, called l’Oca Giuliva, which had surprisingly fall-over salivating, excellent Italian food. I thought we had died on the tram tracks and ended up in heaven… but no, here we were.
The place was totally empty when we arrived at 21:00, but filled within fifteen minutes of sitting down.
I think that when one person sits, it is like a magnet to attract others.
I started with a salad of strawberries, walnuts, warm goat cheese and baslmic vinegar. Gail had fresh ravioli filled with ricotta cheese, in a spinach, sage butter sauce, while I had a meat pasta with home made sausage and nutmeg cream sauce. They brought me a different plate by mistake which was soooo good (I had three bites before they discovered the error) and they did offer me the choice of staying with the plate I had, or going with the one I had ordered.
Door number one, or door number two?
Monty… I will go with…
The original order.
And did I win on that one. I upgraded my meal from “excellent" to "once in a lifetime."
We finished up with limoncello, on the house.
A great meal on a wonderful, warm night.
I wanted to do one last thing tonight, since it was only 23:00: head over to the Plaza de España. We took the maze, to a plaza, over through a park with huge, huge ancient trees. Across a road, through another park with fountains and a homeless guy bathing in one of them, past the hookah bar with the beds to recline on, into the Plaza.
It was magical.
The lights, the towers, a curved, half circle pavilion with a D - shaped canal and little bridges arcing over it.
We have to return tomorrow.
So, after a fun day in Sevilla, once again we return way too late and simply crash.
Sevilla Photos of the Day:
Cathedral Photos
Surprise Photo !
Guess what is in Sevilla?
Yup... Calatrava has a bridge here that looks suspiciously like another one I know of...