Saturday, September 27, 2014

If you do enough of them you will get a bad one!

Tours that is. Today was going to be the Full Monty of sightseeing and had signed up for the HoponHopoff tour. Today in Seville

Busing on the transit, 1.40 euros a ride will take you anywhere on the system, we rode downtown and disembarked at the main station, just 500 metres from the attractions. Got on the open air us, after handing the booking voucher over we set  off. First thing to say was that this tour was the worst one we have done and we have done many all over the World. The commentary was insufficient to point  out the sights, the route bypassed many of the sights and then the route was changed ("by circumstances beyond our control") so we had no idea of where we were on the map.

Having said that we did manage to see sights, we didn't know what they were but they still looked good. Arriving back at the start point after about an hour we then did our own tour. First stop the Cathedral. We have been avoiding Cathedrals, every place has one and they usually all look the same. Sevillla's was different. Same cross like design for a footprint but inside was smaller than most and had the High Altar and the Choir areas enclosed by cages, a different style of Church.

One of the artifacts in the Cathedral was Christopher Columbus's Tomb. He was buried in a few places before being brought here in 1900. Buried first in NW Spain (he died in Valladolid), moved to a Monastery in Sevilla then the Dominican Republic (he had requested this) on to Cuba and then after Cuban independence he came back to Sevilla and put in this magnificent arrangement. The four Pallbearers are actually Kings that represent the neighbouring Regions. One the great things about this Cathedral is that is a working one. While we were there, a Saturday there were two weddings in the Chapels. Another fine unpaid show as we watched the celebrants in their finery, we didn't stay long enough to see the Bride and Groom but the clothes the guests wore were "reet posh!" especially the women and the hats they had on.

By this time we had to sit down, picked a Cafe in the Plaza Nueva and were astounded, once again, by the lunch. I had a burger on a donut, never heard of such a thing and Doreen had a salmon filet on puff pastry - a definite five forks award for these. a two wine lunch and then on to the shopping. We were looking for a specific item - two Spanish Soccer shirts for our little boys. We had seen a pair on the first day but none since. Today we got lucky and found the sizes for both and priced to match. Meandering we came back to the start point and it started to rain. Doreen, ever the thinker/planner had put the folding umbrella in the day pack and now we got to use it. Made it as far as a Starbucks 500, meters away from the bus stop and nipped  into the Cafe next door and waited for the rain to stop. It did but not to soon, we had enough to time to get on the interwebthingy and skype home.

Bused it home, the driverlady told us where to get off, printed the boarding passes for the next flight on Monday, finished the wine and looking forward to the drive to Gibraltar tomorrow morning.

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