Sevilla, part dos

As you´ll note from the title, our spanish is improving. Just having a wee break from Granada´s free Tapas (free with every drink bought) to try and catch up. We´re off to Valencia tomorrow, for some serious America´s Cup action. I´m looking forward to it, Joanna seems quite accepting...

But Sevilla. We drove into town and parked in a spot near where we´d parked the previous day. But possibly not so much pedestrian traffic. Which we now know is important. We set off to the Cathedral. Amazing. Still has some of the original mosque (as this was all Moorish country, so when re-conquered they converted the Mezquitas to Cathedrales), including the big tower for calls to prayer, which is now part of the bell tower. Everything had to be bigger and more impressive of course... But the cathedral is seriously amazing. Massive, with tons of chapels all around the side.
Serious gold in places. Fantastic architecture. And great to go up the bell tower. We then went for some lunch - Granada, tapas free; Sevilla, no. Sevilla very expensive. Then we set off for a pension. In theory very expensive like the rest of Sevilla, but we found a small room with no bano (bathroom) or windows for 32€. Lovely other than lack of facilities, so: brilliant. Had to be in by 3 though (these early to bed spanish types!). With that sorted we headed to the Alcazar. A 14th century palace built by King Pedro I. Pedro was apparently called The Cruel by his aristocrats, but got on better with the common people. All very Mudejar style: christian-arabic mix. Carlos V, Holy Roman Emperor did a bit of remodelling work in the 16th century, as you do. Lovely gardens too. The current monarch pops in from time to time and has the upper floors, which we didn´t get to visit for some reason.
So afer a nice ol´ time there we headed back to the car to drive it near the pension before heading out for some grub. And that´s when we found the window smashed, and the laptop missing from its hiding place (and indeed those things hiding it moved elsewhere). Nothing else taken, except for useful wires in laptop bag. So headed to police station. First (very big) station told us to go to another one, and on our way out of there a man on a moped offered to get us our laptop back. Tres dodgy. Kept him talking and once he discovered we weren´t "helped" to park by anyone he wasn´t interested. There was a parking "helper" (beggars who generally point out parking spaces) not a million miles from where we parked though...
Anyway had a bit of a wait at the police station, but eventually got our report in. Nice policemen once again. Made a cardboard window and parked in the a nice secure parking place near our pension. Dinner expensive again. Sevilla may be very pretty, but it doesn´t half cost...

Sevilla, part 1

So we left Tavira, not quite the 9 o´clock get to the internet cafe we planned, more 12 and it had shut for lunch, so we better head to spain... Stopped to post a couple of postcards whilst Portugese stamps still worked (nephews are getting cards from each country), grab some lunch... We hadn´t filled up on fuel as Spanish fuel was so much cheaper. And there´d be a station just across the border right? Nope. Capitalism can´t be quite as strong as in Anglo-saxon countries, although we did pass 2 being built, so maybe it´s starting to be... Got further, tank got lower... no services on map now we look... So had to leave the main road and search for a town. Decided on Gibraleon. We found it, but a lot of the streets weren´t paved... didn´t seem particularly wealthy shall we say... Fuel light´s been on for a bit... So we stopped for our 2nd encounter with Spanish policemen. We´ve had 3 now and the spanish police seem lovely...
No english, but they pointed us in the right direction (basically keep going 500m and you´re there...), and thirsty Clio was happy again.
On we headed. Sevilla wasn´t too far, but as much as we were complaining about the rain in the northwest of Iberia, the sun got too hot, so we had to stop for a bit for food and water. We got to Sevilla, where it was 37C. Toasty. No wind. No left turns either. So when the tourist office was on the wrong side of the road... well we had difficulty. And then it turned out to be shut with sign to go to the main office. So we walked there. Nice man recommended a Pension over the 3 camp grounds. We knew better. The car needed a right old organise (we have too much stuff), and that´d be easier (and cheaper) at a campsite. So after a brief wander (wow, what amazing buildings Sevilla has, where can we get some fluids... mmm, Seville Orange juice...), we headed out of town for Camping Oromana in Alcala de Guidaira, 15k outside Sevilla. It was late by this point, and there weren´t the best signs. Firstly for negotiating the town (which turned out to have impressive ancient walls & buildings on hills entering the town), and then there were none for the campsite. Some would take this as a bad sign, but it was late, and we were determined. A kindly Pharmacist (no english), helped us some way, as did the Hotel Oromana (we knew we were near then). Hmm, campsite felt like something out of Psycho. Bungalows with caved-in roofs, locked toilet blocks that look like they´ve seen better decades... But eventually we found the "new" fairly nice toilet/shower block, and the fact that it was 9.30 and about to go dark and we were miles from anywhere else decided that we should stay. Besides there seemed to be lots of kids running about, so surely we couldn´t be in a horror film, it wasn´t empty enough (although not really any adults beyond the manager...).
So we quickly cooked up dinner, ate, and then slept like babies (nothing can stop us!). In the morning we packed up for our day in Sevilla, and maybe a pension in town wasn´t such a bad idea...