Day 6 included the Seville city tour, and our optional (but excellent) Flamenco show. Here we are starting to cruise around the city on the bus.
Approaching the Plaza de Espana, built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Expo of 1929. The expo was supposed to be a tribute to Spanish influence throughout the Americas, but the financial crisis of 1929 made it a bust.
Making our way through the gates...
...to the Plaza de Espana.
Around the plaza are various scenes from each of the provinces and areas in Spain...
...including this one with the obligatory salute to Don Quixote.
The plaza is a broad ring with a man-made river running 270 degrees around it...
...and a large fountain in the middle. Wade is actually happy here; he is just looking straight back into the sun.
Across we go to the Maria Luisa Park. This leonine statue is a salute to Christopher Columbus.
The Maria Luisa Park is a botanical garden...
...with a wide variety of plant life.
This is supposedly the building where The Barber of Seville was filmed.
Our local guide pointing out the aqueducts built into the city walls.
More narrow streets and alleys like in all the older towns.
The Seville Cathedral...
...and bell tower.
Of course, for a very reasonable fee you can tour around the city in one of these.
Another shot as we go in...
Inside the cathedral.
The main altar with scenes from the life of Jesus.
The obligatory shots of the organ...
...and choir seating.
A lovely stained glass; the camera does not even catch the beautiful royal purple shining through.
A crypt in the floor of the cathedral.
The tomb of Christopher Columbus.
More of the displays of wealth piety.
Just outside the cathedral is the Christmas Bazaar, full of nativity scenes, ornaments, etc.
We look at Yelp and find there is a highly-rated tapas place only a couple of blocks away, and it is going to open in about ten minutes. We get right in, and sit with a view of this plant wall.
The place is called Mamarracha, and the local beer is called Cruzcampo.
We start with a few olives...
...and a first course of sweet corn risotto with truffle and pecorino cheese.
A skillet queso with chopped pico on top.
Beef tenderloin with some papas fritas.
We start to walk back toward the hotel, and it seems that the whole city is out enjoying the sunshine. I thought there might be some special celebration today; everyone was so happy, it seemed that maybe the city's football team had just won. We eventually got tired and caught a cab, and we tried to ask the cab driver in our not-so-good Spanish whether there was something special happening today, and he said in Spanish, "No, it's just Saturday."
That evening we went to a Flamenco show, which turned out to be very interesting and extremely well-produced. The place was called "El Patio Sevillano".
They had a variety of singing and dancing styles, some done with tracks and some with live guitarists. All in all, a very good time.
One of the hardest things for us to adjust to is how late the dinner hour is. After the Flamenco show, we walked back toward the place we had dinner the night before, and stopped at Restaurante Tagliatelle, that had caught our eye. We had a "light" dinner of a couple of flatbreads...
...and split some delicious carbonara.