Today we disembarked from our cruise ship for the last time but were not returning home immediately but spending 3 days in Seville.
We had breakfast and, before we left the dining room, we took a photo with the two servers, Antoinette & Shantoy, who had given us excellent service. They always called us Sir Trevor and Madam Vicky. Our suitcases had been collected from outside of our cabin during the night, so we needed only to collect our hand luggage and leave the ship. We walked along the pier to where all the luggage of departing passengers was set out and we waited for a taxi. The ship’s crew were unable to book a taxi for us and many other passengers and it was a scramble to get one for ourselves.
The taxi took us to our downtown hotel but, because it was just 09:00, it was too early to book in, so we left our luggage there and went for a walk around the immediate area. Walking along the pavements was not a simple exercise as it ranged in width from normal to very narrow, so narrow in fact that one could not walk on it. This could have been because it was a very old area of the city and the pavements had been affected as building had taken place over the years.
We saw some very interesting buildings and a beautiful spot with a huge tree in the centre of the square. In another square there was a simple but lovely fountain with a small sculpture at the top. It was also interesting to see how many churches there were in such a small area and the fact that they were all Roman Catholic. In other cities, including our own, one can find 4 churches within short distances, but they are usually different denominations.
While sitting in a park which had buildings for various arts teaching schools such as music, acting and painting, on had a sign on it for the Dolores Sapena Foundation but nothing to indicate what this was. Having looked it up, it is a non-profit, world-wide organisation offering training in a variety of careers for people who cannot afford or for other reasons may not be able to access training.
After getting a sandwich at a very nice grocery shop very close to the hotel, we returned to book in at 14:30. We were very surprised at the room which had been allocated to us as we had specifically said we did not want one on the roadside. The gentleman on duty was almost aggressive in ‘explaining’ that it was what we had reserved and the hotel was full so we could not change. We accepted this and settled in while we waited for my cousin and her husband who were coming from Portugal, just 1½ hours away, to spend our final 3 days of holiday with us. They were staying at the same hotel making it easy for us to enjoy lots of quality time together.
They arrived at 15:30 and once they had booked in and unpacked, we all went out and about again. After an early supper we visited the Metropole Parasol, a very large wooden building built in 2001. The developers of the Metro, as it is known, claim that it is the largest wooden building in the world and has 3 floors, each of which has a different purpose. It has been built an in area where it is surrounded by very old buildings which received a facelift once the Metro was added to the area.
On our way back we passed 2 tall pillars, the Pillars of Hercules (Heracles) which, as mentioned in a previous blog are important to Seville as he was the mythical founder of the city. In a nearby square was a statue of Antonio Machin, a Cuban musician who created his own acoustic band in the 1920s. After emigrating to the USA, he moved on to Madrid where he recorded music until his death in 1977.
We had an early night as we planned to be up early and to tour Seville on the Hop on/Hop off bus for the following day.
