Blanca & Ian's Travels

Spain

Trip Report - June 2005

Searching for Moors

Madrid & Andalusia

Almagro, Jaén, Granada, Sevilla, Nerja, Madrid

Part 4 - Sevilla

Entrance to Hotel Amadeus

Hotel Amadeus Jr Suite 120€          http://www.hotelamadeussevilla.com/

Be aware, the Hotel Amadeus is on a street that is too narrow for cars, like many in the Barrio.  We rolled our bags the necessary 2 blocks & checked into RM 201 - the junior suite - the Mozart - 120€.  Strange long & large room with a bathroom - toilet, shower, bidet separated at one end.  B was not amused that the sink & Jacuzzi bathtub shared the main room.  She likes her privacy at times.  Antiques were everywhere in the lobby & the music theme was predominant.  The owner & her daughters were great for suggestions, directions etc.  Breakfast was 7€ each in your room, on the rooftop, wherever.  Note that street breakfasts can be good too & are quite cheap.  Some restaurants start opening around 8 AM & there is always the Starbucks beside the Cathedral (I resisted & bought 'bar' coffee).
 

Lobby of the Hotel Amadeus

Our strange bedroom

Day 6 Granada to Sevilla

An easy drive out even though I missed the Ronda Sur highway (of course) & ended up driving through downtown Granada.  Just a minor inconvenience & we were soon back on the highway - A92 - for the 4 hour drive to Sevilla.  It started off with mountains all around & gradually flattened out.  White towns (some with castles) whizzed by & the oleander between the east/west lanes was very pleasant.  Lots of curves, however & I swear the road is never straight for more than 1 km the whole way, but there were no mountain passes to add trauma.  A great drive on a hot, sunny day.  The convertible top was open the whole way.  At the outskirts of Sevilla, A92 turns into Ave Andalusia which turns into Ave de Luis Montoyo . . . & heads straight into the Barrio Santa Cruz.  I had detailed directions + maps, but we got mixed up (of course) & after a few very busy blocks I circled around & found a lot.  We lucked out by parking in the underground lot at the Avenida de Menendez Palayo (a busy thoroughfare) & Santa Maria la Blanca - which was the hotel parking as it turned out.  You can not pull over close to the hotel.  The streets are too narrow & too busy.  Park & walk is the plan.

We had lunch at outdoor café - El Cordobés near the hotel.  It was cheap @ 7€ each for 3 courses & a glass of wine.  We ran up the bill however by ordering a pitcher of Sangria (because of the heat - wink, wink) which was laden with alcohol - which produced two instant Canadian drunks.  I had a Spanish omelette & paella - which was just fair.  B had her usual ham & a salad.  Rowdy kids kept customers from the neighboring restaurant - some carne thing - much to the annoyance of his father (?) & us.  The bill was 30€s by the time we staggered away for a siesta. 

We leaped up around 5 PM & dashed to buy Flamenco tickets for Case de la Memoria which was a 2 minute walk from the hotel.  12€ each & we got tickets for the 10:30 show that night (two shows nightly - also at 9 PM).  For dinner (8 PM following late afternoon hangover from Sangria) we had pasta carbonara in an outdoor cafe in the Plaza Santa Maria at the rear corner of the Alcazar.  OK food but it was still sweltering.  We walked a bit.  Note: Cathedral square was under construction & the Giralda tower had scaffolding on top so no photo opps here.  We had a pre-show drink at Las Teresas (old & well-known bar) which got mobbed by people halfway through our drink.  I felt sorry for the poor English girls trying to eat tapas at the bar.  We arrived & lined up 45 minutes early for the show which gave us front row center seats.  3 performers for 1 hour - a singer (& rhythm guy), a guitarist & a dancer in a small Moorish courtyard.  Wow.  Dramatic & intimate.  Just what we wanted.  The sound of her heels was thunderous.  B got into a conversation in line with an English woman in town for a migrant worker conference.  She had been there the previous night & came back because it was so good.  The music was exotic - very Islamic or something Middle Eastern.  The female dancer was awesome.  So intense - sometimes her movements were like a horse (beat) but her arms were like a belly dancer's.  She looked so serious.
 

Day 7 Sevilla continued . . . 

We had a continental breakfast in hotel - 7€ - which was just coffee, juice, croissants, rolls etc.

We bee lined to get bullfight tickets for Sunday night.  They were 10€ at the wicket at the Real Maestranza bullring.  Tickets were also available elsewhere on the street & from venders in front of the building - for a premium.  We also bought wine to take home at Especialadades on Arfe in the same area.  They had a good selection & prices seem great.  After a quick drop-off at the hotel, we were off to one of Sevilla's greatest hits:  the Alcazar. 

It seemed that many others had a similar idea.  As it turned out, the large line - well more of a bunch actually - was totally stalled for about 20 minutes & everybody was losing their patience & it got reasonably pushy once the line began to move - especially the hordes of short old Spanish ladies, all in black.  I pushed back.  A bunch of crabby old women weren't going to get the best of me.  Once we got in, it was very pretty with lovely fountains & gardens, although it somehow felt like a lesser cousin to the fabulous Alhambra which we had seen just two days before.  The tiles & the plaster work were exquisite.

We avoided food at the Alcazar & the inviting restaurants that surrounded the square & we hit a cheapy swarma place near the hotel.  Well fueled we ventured over through the Parque Maria Luisa aiming toward the Museo Arquelógico.  I had wanted to go out to Italica, but the oppressive heat (36 C) convinced us to see the collection here rather than a hot & dusty field tramping the ruins.  We had to pit stop both ways for a sherbet in the park from a vendor because we were getting fried.  After some map confusion, we found the museum.  It boasted free admission & only about 6 people inside.  Good Roman artifacts & mosaics from Italica & an interesting Paleolithic area downstairs.  And it was far cooler than being out in the sun.  On the long hot slog back through the park, we discovered the Plaza de Éspana.  It was nice but decrepit.  The canals were drained which muted the wow factor, but the tiling was interesting at the many stations around the front of the building.  We walked back through the subway construction area on Carlos V with a refreshment pit stop at some anonymous place along the way.  We were just blubbering at this point with the heat taking its toll.

After a rest at the hotel, we set out for our first full tapas dinner a la Seville at the Bar Estrella & it was tremendous.  It is on a street just a block from the cathedral square & it was very good.  As usual, we were the first patrons for dinner @ 8 PM.  The menus were all Spanish & the wait staff was nothing but Spanish, we had to translate the menu with our book.  We managed OK.  Cheese dishes were good but I kept getting egg dishes until I remembered that huevas were eggs.  27€ including a bottle of Rioja crianza - the house wine.  A great find.  We had a Jacuzzi in our tub in the middle of the room that night, joining in the festive mood out in the alley.  I believe that Sevilla won a soccer game & the city was partying.  And it was Saturday night.  It got quite noisy but we didn't mind.

B observations:  The gardens of Sevilla are a sight to behold.  There are oleanders  & oranges (rotting) all over.  Tiles, tiles everywhere - even on park benches - very picturesque.  Streets in Santa Cruz area are extremely narrow with sidewalks barely wide enough for one & often they just disappear & you have to dodge cars & scooters by standing in doorways.  Sevilla is very bustling with outdoor cafes where people socialize.  Parents, babies, people on the way to or coming from church, tourist, priests - a really great place to people watch.
 

Day 8 Sevilla continued . . . 

Dueling church bells announced that it was Sunday morning & we got a very slow hung-over start.  I walked out for coffee & to watch people rushing to church & left my better half still sleeping.  We finally got out around noon for a walk to the Casa de Pilatos, which I had heard about somewhere on the Internet.  We got lost to the twisty barrio & ended up taking a taxi to get there.  Before entering, we stopped for a snack at a local bar - the Bodegas Extremeña - which was just down the road.  9€s for a couple of cheese dishes & some Iberico jamon. 

Overall, the Casa de Pilatos is a small gem - think of it as a miniature Alcazar without the people.  Originally built in the early 1500s - but with much added - it is a mishmash of styles with stunning Moorish tile & plaster work mixed with exotic marble wall plaques & busts & statues & columns.  And it all works in a funky way.  The gardens were also lovely albeit we were in between flowerings so there was a lot of green plants.  A little crumbling, but well worth the trip.  There were also very few people which made it even more pleasant.

We visited the Cathedral on our way back.  Free on Sundays & very busy.  Cathedrals all seem to pale after San Pietro in Roma . . . It was very ornate with lots of tile & gold & chapels . . . and of course, Cristobal Colon's tomb.  Better known as Christopher Columbus, the actual resting place of ALL of his bones remains a mystery but this is one of the contenders.  Then it was back to our room for siesta as we wait for the bullfight later in the evening.  The weather started to cool a bit & a breeze finally came up!

The bullfight.  7:30 PM Sunday.  This was something B wanted to see.  We felt it was necessary because of the long tradition etc.  We had a drink in a busy bar behind the bullring to prepare & to kill time.  In the arena, our 10€ seats were about half way up on concrete benches.  And 10€ seats are in the sun.  Here, you pay for shade.  Quite the collection of spectators.  Locals who come every week, dressed to kill women, teenagers - a whole smattering of society.  The younger man sitting next to me was a Mexican living in London who came to see the sight.  He explained the whole ritual to us with help from an old Spanish lady behind him who seemed to be a lifelong pro.  The live band that marches in the toreadors & the pageantry was great.  The first bullfight was OK (B hid her eyes through the death sequence).  The second fight had a reluctant bull.  And that was it.  Two fights were enough for us.  There are a total of six fights or so altogether.

We stopped for dinner at the Cerveceria Giralda.  We had a rude waiter - abrupt & bossy. We were not impressed.  It was also extremely loud.  The bare tiles produced a very noisy restaurant & with very few patrons at 9 PM we started to wonder.  We ended up having 3 tapas (same tapas selection as Estrella) & we left & went for Chinese food next door.  I know.  Chinese food in Granada?  Well, let's call it laziness after a long hot post-hangover day.
 

Proceed to Part 5 - Nerja