The Purple Penguin

We ended up sleeping for nearly 12 hours and then took a long slow start to the day. We had tickets for the Cathedral for 14:35 so had plenty of time. We had coffee in the room, sorted our bags and clothes, put stuff in the safe, and gathered together what we’d need for the day.

Headed out and followed the street that took us to the Cathedral. We stumbled upon a De Nata ‘factory’ which made the Portguese custard tarts we got two and coffee. While we ate we could watch more tarts being made. They were excellent. Then more walking and back along the river, then back to the cathedral area where we found a small cafe. The waiter saw Joe’s camera and sent us up to the roof, which had a wonderful view of the cathedral and Alcazar. We could also hear all the music at street level but without the begging that accompanies it. For some of it calling it music is a bit of a stretch – there were a load of groups that were just a bunch of men yelling ‘ole’ somewhat together and to some sort of tune – they were ones who would also go table to table demanding money for the ‘music’. Then you’d get the ones who would put out a case and play quietly – really good music for the most part. And we were seeing a lot of musicians in medievel style outfits – more on them later. The music we were hearing up on the roof was actually a bit better than what we were hearing yesterday. Lunch was shared platters and again too much food! But really really good – we had aubergine in an orange batter served with a Seville orange sauce that was lovely, but we couldn’t finish it!

We then headed for the Cathedral, still a bit early and the queues hadn’t been set up so we sat and watched people. When they started setting up we got in the queue, but turned out we were behind a group that should have been in the group queue and they were trying to sort out their tickets, so we ended up first in. Headed straight for the Giralda to find the door wasn’t open. A bit of back and forth and we ended up waiting by the door until they came to open it. Then up the tower. It is 34 rather steep ramps up (and they do not seem wide enough to allow two horses to go side by side as claimed) then a short flight of stairs to the bells where there are lovely views out over the city. Marred slightly by the netting everywhere. When we got down (the ramps are steeper coming down even though they are the same ramps, they are definitely steeper) and went back into the cathedral the queue for the tower was long, so we did that correctly! Walked all over the cathedral – they were preparing for the Fiesta de la Virgen de la Inmaculada, so lots of setting up and closed areas. The virgin statue was all dressed in white and lit up. Which brings us back to those musicians we were seeing – the Tunas. Not fish, but university faculties who would be singing to the virgin statue in the square outside the cathedral (though we didn’t go watch). The Seville Cathedral is the largest gothic cathedral in Europe and by the time we’d seen it we felt it was the largest. You exit through a courtyard of orange trees (by the way there are orange trees everywhere, down every street in every courtyard, every bit of garden has an orange tree and the air even smells of orange or does at the time of year they are ripening).

We tried to walk a bit more but our feet had enough so we headed back to the hotel to sit at the rooftop bar with drinks, doing the journal and sorting photos. Later we headed out for supper and ended up at Restaurante El 3 de Oro where we got the rice with partridge. It was more like a risotto and excellent with a lovely rich broth and tender pieces of partridge. As we were eating we watched a large group of the Tunas (purple sash) go by.

When we left the restaurant the purple sashes were at the bar over the road. We walked to the main road then started back to the hotel, when we saw a group of yellow sash musicans coming down the street playing. They stopped outside the restaurant where we had eaten and played for a bit, then went in and upstairs for their meal. So we did actually get to hear at one group play even if we didn’t go to the plaza to watch the spectacle.