Monday April 22, 2019

Our Sevilla Apartment

It is time to leave Madrid and head to Sevilla. We get a free ride on the local train to the Atocha station. This saves us about 15 minutes of walking with our packs. It is a two and a half hour journey at 180 miles per hour on the fast AVE Train. The ride goes quickly as I journal and Carol reads. We have a 1.5 mile walk to the apartment we have secured in Sevilla. We exit the station and it takes a few minutes to find some street names and get our bearings. From there the walk goes smoothly even though we twist and turn down some narrow side streets. The streets are well marked here so I navigate easily. We get to the apartment about five minutes before the 1315 time I gave the person we are meeting here. Jose shows up right on time and shows us to the apartment. It is nice with a kitchen, small living room, and a separate bedroom in the back. Jose shows us a map and where some sights are and a nearby street with tapas bars. We arrange to leave the keys in the apartment as we are leaving early in three days. Business done, he is on his way and we are on ours.

Processional Float

We go to check out the cathedral which is supposed to be free on Mondays, but when I ask, I am told it is 9 Euros. There is a long line so we switch gears and go to the Church of the Savior. No lines and you can buy a ticket here that includes the cathedral for the same 9 Euros. You can visit the cathedral anytime within 7 days and we plan on going tomorrow morning. The Church of the savior has several processional floats in it that they just used this past week. The metal smithing on them is beautiful.

Processional Madonna

There are also several different Madonnas, dressed up that were part of the procession and reside here the rest of the year. They are truly beautiful. There is also a large bone reliquary of Santa Barbara, maybe a femur. We leave the church and wander around looking for the bull arena here in Sevilla. Carol wants to see their museum and it is free after 1500. We get there and stand in a pretty long line. It moves fairly well and when we get to the ticket lady, learn that it is only tours and the next available one is 1630. That leaves us about an hour to wait.

El Toro

We sit inside where it is cool. I do leave to try and figure out how to get to our next stop and conveniently find a city map just up the street, complete with a you are here marker and all the sights with numbers and locations on them. I peruse it, find our next two stops and rely on my memory for later.

Sevilla Arena

Our tour time comes up and we go into the museum. We learn the history of the sport, see portraits of some of the great Matadors and mounted heads of some of the great Bulls. One head is missing an ear and another is missing both. We learn that if the matador has an exceptional performance, the president of the bull arena, sparked on by fans waving white handkerchiefs, can award the matador one or both of the Bulls ears as a trophy. The tour is worth the free price but would not have been worth the normal 8 Euro admission.

Cool Architecture

Next we ahead to the Hospital of the Caridad which is also supposed to be free after 1500. Not sure why, but when we get there a sign says that they closed at 1500 today and the rest of the week. This was another spot that we had decided to see if it was free but did not think it interested us enough at its regular price. We just keep moving towards a palace that has free ground floor entry after 1800. We get there at 1750 and a sign says free between. 1800 and 1830. We do a quick break on a bench and return at 1805 to discover that it is indeed free but only if you picked up a ticket that morning. Always a gimmick. So we end up one of four on the planned freebies today. We do enjoy walking around and getting to know the city.

Antigua Abeceria

We return to our apartment to freshen up and decide where to eat dinner. We opt for a nearby place Antigua Abeceria de San Lorenzo. We walk in are seated at a table and the waitress tries really hard to explain things in English. She does really well. We order two croquets, fried cod, shrimp with black rice, and a tomato vegetable soup that she says is their specialty. Two glasses of red wine to supplement our meal. First the croquets and cod come. Both very good, the cod is not whole fish as we thought but similar to the cod donuts we had in Madrid.

Charlie’s Hungry

Next the shrimp with black rice brought to us by a different waiter. This is most excellent and we now run out of wine. What to do, the new waiter recommends a bottle from Cadiz, so we go with that and also order a hamburger which has fois in it and as he says it is not hamburger like we know, it is the meat of the bull.

House Tomato Soup

While they cook our bull burger, the soup arrives. It is cold and so very good. It is hard to find this kind of simple, fresh, goodness in the USA. The bull burger comes and is a meal in itself served with no bun and covered with the famous Pedro Ximenez sauce, which seems to be common in Spain.

Famous Pedro Ximenez

When I ask what kind of wine it is, he brings us a bottle and we see it is a sherry wine. So much different and better than our sherry. We also talk with Eduardo, our waiter and learn he is from Venezuela, been here two years and sends money back to his mom and grandmother so they can survive. Once again, we feel luck to live in America. We walk the two blocks back to our apartment and call it a day. Another nice day finished with another good meal in Spain.

Expenses
Train from Madrid.to Toledo 82.40E
Apartment San Lorenzo 77.17E
Church 18E
Plaza de Toros de Sevilla Free Day
Dinner at Antigua 54.90E
Pastries and Milk 4.60E
Walked 5.5 Miles