Sevilla- It's definitely hotter.

Wednesday-

We woke up early yet again to head to Atocha train station to catch the fast ave train to Sevilla. After some croissants and extremely strong coffee for breakfast, we all boarded the train and found it pretty difficult to keep our eyes open.

Dad would laugh out loud to the movie he was watching with headphones while we all listened to other people’s phone conversations consisting of only “Vale, vale, vale, vale, vale.”

We arrived in Sevilla and barely fit in 2 taxis to make it to our hotel La Casa de la Juderia which means the house of the Jewish quarters. Each room is so unique and the hotel is quite the maze interrupted by beautiful patios.

After getting settled, we ventured out to the middle of town and ate some pizza and salad by the cathedral. It is super hot here, 42 degrees Celsius, so hot I don’t even want to know what that is in farenheit. So, we sat near the mist machines at lunch and mom would get up and run to stand under them as they sporadically came on.

Afterwards we toured the cathedral that’s in the Guinness Book of World records for being the largest cathedral in the world. It is even more grand and incredible than that in Segovia. It was one of the fam’s favorites thus far.

We could see the tower (that we avoided climbing this time) built in the 1200’s from a beautiful orange orchard. So cool.

On the way back toward the hotel, we stopped for some much deserved helado at the same place we ate lunch. Then we came back and crashed for a late siesta and woke up later to venture out to the Plaza de Espana. It looked so beautiful around 9pm when the sun was just beginning to go down, not to mention it was a good deal cooler.

From there we headed out to eat in the light of the illuminated cathedral and had some of the best gazpacho and paella thus far.

We got to sit around and just enjoy the night air til about 11:30pm and then go back to the hotel and just sit around in one of the little patios.

Me, Mike and Jen made our 2^nd attempt to play go fish with the crazy cards and we succeeded a little better this time.

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Thursday 7-29-2010

We woke up early and went down to a great continental breakfast buffet. Our first sight seeing adventure of the day was Sevilla’s alcazar. This is a huge fortress/ residential palace which was started in 914 but the majority of the palace was begun in the 13^th century. The first trip around the world was planned in this building in the admiral’s room and there was also a storage room for all things found in the new world. Below, there is an old roman-like bath house and the majority of the alcazar was decorated in Mudejar tiling. I’ve contracted Michael to build me some ornate doors, benches, a pavilion, and a musical fountain for my future house like we saw in the alcazar. (He said he would do it if I first built the palace). Later, we proceeded to get lost in the maze garden and even saw a family of peacocks in a different garden.

After the alcazar, we ventured into the museum dedicated to Spanish expeditions to the new world. There were old letters and drawings of maps that were done by Columbus and other explorers dating back to the 15^th century. It was one of our favorite parts of the day.

Later we visited la Casa de los Pilatos. This was a Sevillan royals house that visited Jerusalem and decided to design his house after Pontius Pilate’s house. It was really big and also decorated with tons of tiles and ornately carved ceilings with a courtyard in the middle and garden’s surrounding it.

For lunch we stopped in for some more gazpacho and ham and cheese sandwiches and escaped the heat under an umbrella. Today wasn’t quite as hot as Wednesday but still toastier than Madrid.

In the afternoon we took a siesta then went swimming in the pool which was on the roof! It was so neat to look out over Sevilla and see all the beautiful rooftops.

At 7pm we saw a flamenco show at El Patio Sevillano. I had been there when we came to Sevilla before but some of the performers were different and some of the numbers were changed so I felt like I was seeing it for the first time. We sat on the fifth row and from there you can see in the face of the dancers that they are dancing from the heart and most of the time without a choreographed routine. It was incredible.

After the show we walked down by the river and Michael marveled at the bridge. While we were down there Michael swore he could smell chocolate and churros that he’s been craving since the first night we got them. Sure enough, 4 blocks later we found a churros stand. What a nose!

We ended up going back to the same little street by the cathedral to get dinner. We shared tortilla, gazpacho and vegetable paella which everyone enjoyed. On our way back to the hotel we got a few pastries and listened to an amazing violin player next to the cathedral.

Like usual, we sat on the patio in the hotel and talked til we were ready to go to bed and then me, Mike and Jen went and played go-fish in my room and stayed up talking until late. Then it was just time to pack and get ready to head out in the morning.