Seville - The Real Alcazar and Flamenco

Not quite the sunny scene that was in the photo of the Lion's Gate from the previous day! We have passed through that and this is the Patio del Leon - the Lion's Courtyard which has always been a military compound. We were unfortunate not only with the weather but also because a good deal of the Alcazar was closed because they were filming 'Game of Thrones' there. Still, we soldiered on and saw what we could.  The word Alcazar derives from the Arabic al qasr which means palace or fortress.

Beyond the triple arches stands the Patio de la Monteria where the court met the king before going out hunting. This is the original part of the palace built in the 11th century.

The Patio del Yeso with its beautiful stucco work. This is also in the oldest part of the Alcazar and dates back to the 12th century. It is one of the few remaining parts of the original Muslim Alcazar. 

Real Alcazar was built on the site of a Moorish palace known as Al-Murawak. It was built in the Mudejar style around several patios and over the centuries it has been extended many times. I love the colour of the walls and the fountain in this room.

The entrance to the Alcazar which stands at the back of the Patio de la Monteria. This part of the palace was built in the mid 14th century by King Pedro I  - known as both 'The Cruel' and 'The Just'.

This is the central part of the magnificent facade with more wonderful stucco work.

The Patio de las Doncellas or Courtyard of the Maidens with its central rectangular reflecting pool flanked by two sunken gardens. This was the old centre of public life in the palace of Pedro I. It is said that the name refers to the legend that the Moors demanded 100 virgins every year as tribute from the Christian kingdoms of Iberia!

Now I confess that I don't really remember quite where we are here but I think it's the Dormitorio de los Reyes Moros or Bedroom of the Moorish Kings.

This one of the archways leading from the Dormitorio into the Patio de las Doncellas. I love all the colours and textures in this photo.

The Patio de las Munecas or Courtyard of the Dolls was the centre of the residential part of the Alcazar. It's small but absolutely beautiful.

I really like this tapestry although I have no idea where it was - I really must keep a diary on my next trip!

The Hall of the Tapestries - these wonderful pieces were first painted by Jean de Vermayen and then transferred to tapestry in the workshops of Guillermo Pannemaker of Brussels betweeen 1549 and 1554.

A closer look at the one of the ships in port - I regret that my Latin isn't up to translating what it says at the bottom of the tapestry but possibly the scene is depicting something to do with the conquest of Tunis by Carlos V

A tantalizing glimpse of the area that we weren't allowed into because of the filming!

Let's face it - gardens in the rain aren't a whole lot of fun so there is just one photo to give you a glimpse. Most of the gardens were in the area that was closed off anyway. I really would like to go back to the Alcazar again and see all of it - preferably in the sunshine! I think it's one of those places that you would gain a lot from seeing a second time anyway.

We had booked to see a flamenco show in the evening so we decided to combine an exploration of the old Jewish quarter of Seville with an attempt to find the location of our destination for the evening.

We eventually found Calle Meson del Moro where the Casa de la Guitarra is located. It turned out to be quite close to the cathedral and easy to find when we were ready.

Happily we also spotted this restaurant a little further down the street and booked a table for after the show.

It was very attractive inside. This is the lower dining area but we had a table on the upper floor which was even nicer.

The venue for the flamenco show was small and intimate. We were seated upstairs which gave us a better view.

The guitarist was excellent and also bilingual so was able to explain what we were hearing and seeing in both Spanish and English. Flamenco is a type of Spanish folk music and it originated in Andalucia which is why we wanted to hear it in Seville rather than anywhere else.

I have to confess that flamenco singing does nothing for me, in fact a little goes a very long way! The fault is in me though and not the lovely and elegant lady who was singing. I suspect that it is an acquired taste or perhaps you have to grow up being familiar with it to really enjoy it.

The dancing on the other hand is fantastic - full of life and emotion and a great art. To my surprise there was no sign of castanets although there was a lot of finger clicking and rythmic clapping. It was a real cultural experience. After the show we went back to our little restaurant which was absolutely full. We had a wonderful meal - veal marsala and profiterole in my case. An excellent end to the day.

Cuckoo!

In April come he will
 In May he'll sing a lay
 In June he'll change his tune
 In July away he'll fly
 In August go he must

 I've known this little rhyme since I was a child and yesterday morning I discovered that the line 'In June he'll change his tune' is absolutely true. I heard two cuckoos calling all the way round on our walk on Blackamoor and mostly it was the usual 'Cuckoo' but every so often I heard instead 'Cuck-Cuckoo'. I'm so glad that we still have at least two cuckoos around, I did think that there might be three but I can't be sure of that.

The wildflowers are wonderful at the moment, this is Pink Campion, Queen Anne's Lace and the wonderful aniseed scented Sweet Cicely beautifully set off by the dry stone wall. A couple of pieces of Sweet Cicely stewed with fruit (especially rhubarb) will allow you to use half the usual amount of sugar. You do need to be careful though as it is very similar to the highly poisonous hemlock. The hemlock has red spots on its stems though and lacks the wonderful aniseed scent of Sweet Cicely which is present in the leaves, flowers,and seed heads. I always squeeze the flowers when I pass as I love the smell of aniseed.

I like this photo because it looks as though B Baggins is smelling the flowers:)

Some of the fields are a sea of beautiful golden buttercups at the moment, they look just fabulous and the camera doesn't do them justice.

On the higher part of the moor there is lots and lots of crosswort - its always there but this year I've seen more of it than usual.

The May blossom is everywhere - I love to catch the scent on the breeze but close up it becomes rather overpowering. Always beautiful though. This is just a taste of the English countryside, next time we'll be back in Spain.

Seville - Part One

At 11am on Tuesday morning we left Madrid to travel to Seville by train.First class travel on this particular train was rather like travelling by air. To our surprise an attendant appeared at regular intervals offering a choice of fruit juices and water and around 12.30pm we were served a delicious light lunch. All of this was included in the price of the ticket which cost less than a standard class ticket from Sheffield to London! By mid afternoon we were installed in our small boutique hotel and were ready to start exploring. Seville is the capital city of Andalusia and lies on the banks of the Guadalquivir River. It's a very ancient city being founded originally by the Roman general Scipio. The Moors were here from 711AD to 1248AD and there is still a very strong Moorish influence in many areas. During the 16th and 17th centuries after the discovery of the Americas Seville was one of the most important ports in Spain. The photograph shows the river and the Torre del Oro - the Tower of Gold. This was built in the 13th century as a military watch tower to control access to Seville from the river. It's possible to go into the tower but sadly it was closed for some reason that day.

Seville's cathedral is built where, in the 12th century, the Great Mosque stood. The only part of the Mosque that remains is the minaret which is in the centre of this photograph. The Giralda is now the bell tower and has a statue called 'El Giraldillo' on the top.
In the area outside the cathedral there were several horses and carriages available for hire and we decided that a ride in one of these would be a good way to get our bearings and get an idea of what there was to see in the city.

The drive took about an hour and was very pleasant as quite a lot of it was in the shade of trees in the Maria Luisa Park which was one of the places we decided to return to as was the Plaza de Espana. Above is our trusty steed with his carriage which was actually surprisingly comfortable. He must have nerves of steel as he coped with heavy traffic and a busy roundabout without turning a hair. He was certainly more relaxed about the roundabout than I was!

By this time it was early evening and there were far fewer people around so it was easier to take photographs. This is the south door of the cathedral with a replica 'El Giraldillo' standing in front of it.

Some of the wonderful stone carving above the south door of the cathedral.

The Lion's Gate -the entrance to the Real Alcazar,the Royal Palace of Seville.

The Giralda was illuminated at night as was the rest of the cathedral.

Next morning was decidedly grey but we decided to walk through Maria Luisa Park anyway as it's close to Plaza de Espana. It's an attractive place with plenty to see - wide tree lined avenues, pools, fountains and statues. It's named after the Princess Maria Luisa d'Orleans who gave the grounds of the San Telmo Palace to the city in 1893.The park was laid out in the early 1900s. The photo above is actually a memorial to a Spanish writer called Gustavo Adolfo Bequer and his statue is round the other side - this was a much nicer view though - I love the graceful shape of the tree.

This must be a wonderful place to escape the scorching heat of midsummer in Seville.

Plaza de Espana was built in 1919 for the Ibero-American Exposition World's Fair.There are four bridges over the moat each representing one of Spain's four ancient kingdoms which were Aragon, Castile, Leon and Navarre I think. The buildings housed Spain's industry and technology exhibits. Today it houses government departments.

You can go inside the central part of the building which overlooks the fountain in the centre of the courtyard.

Along the walls at the front of the building are the alcoves of the provinces - one for every province in Spain. Some of the tiled pictures are really stunning. This one is Pamplona which is famous for the Running of the Bulls.

Palencia is in the north west of Spain.

Last but not least we have Madrid.

 

All the bridges are decorated with azulejos - the painted ceramic tiles that are also used for the alcoves of the provinces.

The fountain in the centre of the Plaza. I don't think we would have found the Plaza de Espana without doing the carriage drive the previous day but it was well worth seeing. We spent quite a while here before walking back through the park to the area near the cathedral. We chose one of the many cafes where we had a lovely omelette for lunch. In the afternoon we visited the Real Alcazar - but that's for next time.

Madrid

My daughter and I arrived in Spain late in the afternoon on Saturday October 12th. Our hotel was close to the Palacio Real de Madrid (the Royal Palace) so after settling in we set off to have a look at it before finding somewhere to eat. As we approached it became obvious that Something Was Going On! There were large crowds of people and military bands left right and centre. We were told that it was the weekend of a Spanish national holiday and further investigation has revealed that it was Fiesta Nacional de España which commemorates the day that Christopher Columbus first set foot in the Americas in 1492.

The following morning we began our day with the traditional Spaish breakfast of chocolate and churros. Churros are a fried dough pastry and you dip it in the chocolate which is rich and thick. Definitely not a low calorie breakfast!

After breakfast we wandered down through El Rastro Market - it's a huge open air flea market that is open every Sunday and there are lots of antique shops in the area too. We knew about this and various other things because Juliette has a friend who used to live in Madrid.

By the time we'd wandered round the market and various antique shops it was lunchtime so after buying ourselves something to eat and drink we walked up to Retiro Park and found a bench in the shade to have our picnic. Retiro is a huge park with lakes, long shady avenues of tress and also more formal areas with statues and flower beds and specimen trees. It was a hot day and being Sunday the park was full of people and yet it never seemed crowded and it was always possible to find quiet areas. We had our lunch near one of the lakes which had all kinds of wildfowl on it including several beautiful black swans.

One of the lovely paths - you can see the first touches of autumn colour in the trees and other than Juliette and I there wasn't a soul in sight.

El Parterre is one of the more formal areas of Retiro and there are several of these sculpted Mediterranean Cypress trees as well as colourful flower beds and one or two lovely specimen trees - cedars I think.

After lunch we went to the Prado Museum and spent about three hours wandering round - neither of us are passionately interested in art but we feel that when we have the chance to visit world class museums and art galleries we should take it. For both of us Rubens was the highlight and I liked the Van Dyck portraits as well. No photography allowed inside the Prado of course so the rather uninspiring photo of the outside is the only record of our visit.

In the evening we visited the Mercado San Miguel a wonderful covered market built in 1916. It stands on the site of the 13th century church known as Iglesia de San Miguel de los Octoes which was destroyed in a major fire in 1790 and demolished in the early 1800s. A fish market soon occupied the open space until the covered market was opened in 1916. It's filled with a wonderful variety of stalls selling everything from fresh fish to chocolates. There's a bar and you can buy food to eat as you wander. If you're hoping to sit down and eat you are likely to be disappointed though - the seats are few and far between and invariably already occupied. These little pastries were delicious - I ate a lot of them:)

Among the things on offer were sea urchins - apparently a real delicacy in Spain.

Juliette is much more adventurous on the food front than I am - she was brave enough to have one and here it is. She ate it all but wasn't exactly ecstatic about it:)

We had booked a walking food tour for Monday morning in the Huertas neighbourhood - this was the old literary quarter of Madrid. There were only four of us, all female, so it was a really nice small group and very international as well - we are English of course and one girl was American, the other South African and our guide was from Argentina!. Our first stop was this grocery store to taste various jams, honeys and other goodies. All of us exited carrying a large and expensive box of Rabitos Royales - chocolate covered figs stuffed with truffle! We  moved on to have porra and chocolate - similar to chocolate and churros - and then to a small business that did homemade potato crisps - they were just fabulous, far and away the best I've ever had and very more-ish!!

The Mercado Anton Martin was just a small local market. We visited several of the stalls here including this one selling olives. I had no idea that there were so many varieties of olives. I didn't take much part in this tasting session as I don't do olives I'm afraid.

Another of the stalls sold an incredible range of cheeses and hams - I don't think I've ever seen such variety before. In all we visited ten different places tasting food and/or drink in each one. To be honest it was the literary associations that took me by surprise and which I found really interesting. Our guide not only took us to taste various Spanish specialty foods but also told us something of the history of the area we were walking round.

I saw this on a wall as we were walking between two of the food venues - I just love it. Don Quixote, Sancho Panza and the recalcitrant donkey:) Click to enlarge it.

This plaque is above the doorway of the house on Calle Cervantes where Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, died in 1616. He was buried in the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians which is still a working convent. The exact location of his tomb was lost for centuries but earlier this year it was announced that it has been found again.

All over the old part of Madrid we saw these lovely tile pictures illustrating the name of the streets - Calle de las Huertas means street of the gardens because once upon a time it led to an area of gardens.

After the tour finished we decided to visit the Reina Sofia Museum which is dedicated to modern art. The work we particularly wanted to see was Pablo Picasso's iconic painting of the Spanish Civil War - 'Guernica'. I am not a fan of modern art and to be honest I wouldn't give you 10p for a work by Picasso or Salvador Dali but there's no doubt that 'Guernica' is a masterpiece and evokes the horror of the Civil War very dramatically. Juliette appreciates the work of modern artists more than I do and enjoyed our visit.

The wonderful tiled frontage of the Farmacia del Leon which I believe dates back to the 1700s.

A close up of one of the panels showing an apothecary at work.

A last view of the Royal Palace as we walk back to our hotel - tomorrow we're off to Seville.