Today we explore more of Seville. We caught the bus to what we thought was the Palace and discovered it was in fact the University, we wandered around and admired their statues and then left. We found the real palace around the corner, but it is still the Military Office and no we couldn’t go in. Bugger! The challenge with hop on hop off buses is that sometimes the commentary is out of sync with where you are or left and right are reversed if the bus goes the other way. So we found a café for tea and toast and had some breakfast. Gerard loves the Jambon here, it is like prosciutto and quite delicious. So he had some of that on his toast, I had jam.
After our breakfast we headed down to the river and went on a river cruise. The river meanders through the city and gives more of an insight into the history and the development of Seville. Seville held the World Expo in 1996 and for that event is build a lot of infrastructure and cultural buildings in one area of town and this is partly the reason they have good fast rail network and airport.
On return from the cruise we walked across the bridge and explored Triana which is an area of Seville known for poets, potters and artists as well as riverside restaurants. We had some lunch at Maccas as everyone else was having a siesta and then walked through town to the church of Jacinta and caught the hop on hop off bus back to the city centre. Once back in the city we checked out the Cathedral and the Palace. Yes, we had found the one you can visit and it is supposed to be very good, but it wasn’t part of our plan to stand in the sun for an hour or two in the queue to get in. We decided to head back to the Hotel for a while and then do the night hop on hop off tour.
After a couple of hours rest and refreshing we caught the bus back into the city and found out that the night tour started at 9.15pm. We had time to go and eat first. We found another nice tapas bar and had jambon and bread, and chicken curry with cous cous. The waiter was an English lass having a study year for her Spanish language studies. She was great to chat to. Of course it was yum! We have not had a bad meal yet. We walked back to the river and boarded the hop on hop off bus for the night tour. Some of it was the same as the day tour, but some was different. Buildings do look different when they are lit up at night. We caught the bus home, what a great day exploring the amazing Seville.
