2 OCT 2019: Pre-Ride Prep and Tourist Day in Seville (12 miles-12 Total)

For most of us it was in bed at 11 or 12 pm, and up at 9 am, so a good long catch-up. We all opted for breakfast at the restaurant linked to our hotel. Then everyone had various things to do get prepared. Michael needed pedals—somehow he missed them when packing. John still needed to assemble his bike, and Robin was getting organized and finished washing some clothing.

After marking major tourist sights on my maps.me app, I marked the location of our hotel and pedaled off. I needed it to navigate back to our hotel.

What a glorious City, the capital of Andalusia, and very bike friendly. Lots of electric scooters and the streets are still crawling with tourists this late in the year. John thought that getting into the major sights would be easy, but long lines formed quickly by mid-morning. However, when John, Robin & Michael encountered the lines, they joined a guided group with executive-entrance front-of-the-line status.

Our evening was spent lounging on our 3rd floor patio and a late tapas at an excellent Peruvian-Spanish fusion restaurant.

I'll leave my impressions in a number of photos.

Christopher Columbus Monument in The Gardens of Murillo. Seville was the port from which Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors set off.

The University of Seville is housed in a former tobacco factory. As shown in the following photo, the building is immense. It houses a collection of quality reproductions of Greek and Roman statues. Skip the next series of photos if that lacks interest.

Copied from the Elgin Marbles. The original is in the British Museum.

Folding E-Bike

Dog of the Day

Horses of the Day. Equally bored drivers.

Torre del Oro. Naval Museum

Churches Everywhere

Cathedral of Seville. 

One of three ornate entrances on just one side oof the cathedral.

Keep in mind that most of these cathedrals were built by the wealth plundered from the New World in the 1600-1800 hundreds. Gold and silver everywhere.

Tree on the City Hall plaza. 

City Hall

City Hall plaza leading into a shaded street of shops, below.

City Hall

More gold and silver.

 A cynic might question if those children under her skirts are cherubs or hers.

More food porn.

Colorful fabric store.

Too cute?

Dog of the Day #2

Garage Door Mural

Yes, this was a good 2nd breakfast, with chocolate filling and thick dark chocolate icing, and just 1.5 euros, about $1.65. Try to find that at a US bakery or Starbucks.

Cathedral to Flamenco. They seem to have a lederhosen-clad man walking the tight rope while holding a beer stein. Target marketing?

Exhibition Center Business Park.

Likely built with euro dollars and now closed. 

. . . AKA, Museum of Contemporary Art.

The center for contemporary art is a repurposed Moors complex. Muslim artifacts were scrubbed by the Roman Catholics. Wall friezes and religious symbols were regarded as sacrilegious and removed or covered.

Moorish Fresco

Sculpture outside Agriculture Exposition Building

Bull RIng

Alcazar

Mid-Day Alcazar Admission Line winds around the block in shoulder season.

Fig Tree Roots

Still Sold. If you attended college in the '60s, you remember this as a step-up from Boone's Farm, and a whole lot better. Mateus competed with Lancers, in the straw basket covered bottle. Among the first major wine imports from Portugal.

I stopped for lunch on the way back to the hotel. Orlando and Bahera, visiting from the UK, were nearby lunch companions. Orlando, raised in Spain, recommended regional tapas specialties and this sauce, gazpacho, not cold soup but a concentrated tomato sauce with regional spices. Orlando said oxtail was invented in Seville, so that was my first tapas, followed by a sandwich, pork loin stuffed with sausage, recommended by the waitress as their house specialty.