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| The refreshment area of the Alcazar was a small room with a fountain in the floor and a gorgeous wood ceiling |
| Erin's Sevilla Journals 6-6-02 We got up a little late this morning, after being out so late. We indulged in some cereal in the room for breakfast - what a relief, after that greasy egg breakfast I'd had to look at the day before! We got going out of the hostel around 11am and went straight to the internet cafe to check for messages from Glenn's 6th cousin, once removed, George. We were also hoping for news from Chris & Stephanie, whom we'd met in Barcelona and might be able to see again here in Sevilla. They were arriving this afternoon and said they'd leave us a message at our hostel. After email, we headed for the Alcazar. This is located right across the street from the great Cathedral, and is an impressive sight all on its own. You enter through the Lion's Gate, pay your entry fee, and are in the courtyard where kings and courtiers used to arrive for business. There is a triple archway, now growing with flowers, which frames the way through to the main palace's courtyard, but the tour first takes you to the room of refreshment & reflection, where we got our first view of the intricately carved arches and fountains & pools that are an integral part of the Arabic design. Very calming and beautiful! After this, we saw some huge regency paintings and an antique fan collection in the room where audiences used to be held in later centuries. This precedes your real visit, inside the palace. As this is still used by the current day royalty, not all rooms in the palace are for public view, but you get to see a large section of rooms downstairs, including the old royal bedrooms and audience rooms, all of which had elaborate decorations on the carved walls & archways, and amazing wood ceilings. The garden was pretty extensive, with several sections found through pathways and arched trees. There were fountains throughout the very orderly paths, flowers, and a couple of gazebos where the royals and courtiers used to have secret love affairs. It was very romantic and a nice break to sit in one of the arbors for a little while. Then, wandering back, we saw a few more rooms on the audioguide tour, including one with some huge very old tapestries and the banquet hall. By the time we left, it was almost closing time, and we wanted to get back to see if there was a message from Chris & Stephanie. We had reserved 4 seats for the 9pm Flamenco show at Los Gallos, a local flamenco theater, in hopes of meeting our friends and sharing the experience of professional flamenco dancers. When we arrived back at the hostel, I asked the hostess if we'd had any visitors or messages, and she seemed confused and said no. Disappointed but still hopeful, we went back to Los Gallos and changed the reservation to the 11:30pm show, so we'd have a chance of getting in touch with them in time. We waited at the hostel for a while before getting up to check on buses down to the train station for our planned day trip to Jerez the next day, then as we went to find dinner, we saw guests gathering for a wedding at a nearby church. It was already 8:45pm, and guests were just arriving! The bride finally drove up around 9:15 to start the wedding, but we were happy to watch the proceedings and marvel again at the differences in time schedules here in Europe. The very young flower girls would have been in bed at home hours before this wedding even started, back home! After that, we found dinner with our friend Jose again, since the food was good and we could watch our hostel door from there. While we waited for food I ran down to a closer but more expensive internet shop to see if there were any messages for us there, but didn't see any from Chris & Stephanie. Luckily we did have one from cousin George, which made our plans to visit him more definite for that weekend. After dinner, we headed back to the hostel to change for the show, and arrived there just at 11pm in time for seating. We got great seats just to the side of the stage, with my feet actually on the steps that lead up to it, which meant I was scrunching over each time a new number started to let the musicians up there! Very close, and the show was a lot of fun. We were able to critique a little after seeing the several performers, as some were definitely more fluid and natural at it than others, who almost looked angry or in pain with the amount of concentration on their faces while performing! The best male dancer was last, and his joy for the dance was clear, which made the audience sit up and take notice. The show let out at 1:30am, and we walked back to the hostel for a little reading and then bed. |
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| This royal audience room had an amazing bronzed arch in the ceiling and beautifully carved walls |