Out of Jerez and Seville here we come!
Trip Start
Feb 17, 2010
1
13
17
Trip End
Mar 07, 2010
Where I stayed
Seville, Andalusia, Spain
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Back at the hotel, we decided to walk over to the Fundacion Real Escuela Andaluza – the Royal school of equestrian art. The horses are true Andalusian horses - absolutely gorgeous. As we left the hotel it started to rain so we didn’t see much of the grounds but they were really beautiful. Of course the show was amazing! The partnership between the men (and one woman!) and their horses was a thing to behold. Of course for Roger it was a cool show that had horses doing neat tricks. For me it was so much more. Wow. It was a real highlight for me.
We decided to brave the roads again and drove into town so we could find the big post office and get rid of our stuff. We found a parking garage AND the post office pretty easily. Fortunately there was a VERY nice woman at the desk who helped us pack up our box and wrap our packages to ship home. Mom- you'll be getting some nice stuff! I won't even mention how much it cost to ship a carpet, tea set, stone bowl and various pottery. Sigh. The good news is that we no longer are carrying everything around! We decided to see a few of the sights that we drove past but weren't able to appreciate the night before. We found the Alcazar and toured the inside. It was really beautiful, and between that and the horse show, we decided that we did in fact like Jerez.
When we left, it was time to head to Seville. We managed to find our way out of Jerez a lot easier than it was to get in! The drive was uneventful other than the fact that we spied the big bull statue that is just on the side of the road. Nobody really knows why it’s there but it’s famous.
We got to Seville very easily but again we missed having a GPS. We drove around for at least a half hour thinking that we were lost but in fact we hadn’t made it into the central part of Seville yet. We found the car rental agency so we could drop off the car, but they were closed so we just left it in their garage. Unfortunately the minute we were ready to walk across the street (to the train station) to get a taxi, it started pouring buckets! We waited a bit but then just went for it. By the time we got in the cab we were drenched.
It was a short cab ride to Las Casa de la Juderia. What a cool hotel! We were brought down into the tunnels and walked through various "rooms" or hallways each with a new décor – Roman palaces, a garden patio, fountains, etc – before getting to our building and up to our room. The walk was certainly charming and very interesting but we were REALLY far away from the entrance and exit of the hotel! We did some exploration and there was only one place that we actually had to go into the tunnel, but the rest of it we could make it through various outdoor connected courtyards. We headed back out to find dinner and came upon a cute place with really great tapas. I had probably my best one yet here in Spain – grilled goat cheese with honey and crusty bread. Yummm!
After dinner the rain had stopped so we took a walk down toward the Cathedral. Stunning! All lit up at night with the new rain sparkling on the street – it was a great scene. The hotel was very close which was nice, so we did a little more wandering around before heading back to catch up on emails and get to sleep.
