Trayle

Day 2 Friday October 6th 2006

After a night we don't want to remember we skipped breakfast at the hostal hence missing the muffin the reviewers on the hostal site were so hung up about.  We passed the Puente (=bridge) San Telmo and headed for barrio Santa Cruz. Passing the huge cathedral, after the Vatican in Rome and St. Pauls in London the biggest in Europe, we walked north and had breakfast in a bar at the Mateos Gago. After that we walked through Santa Cruz used to be the the medieval Jewish quarter and is a tangle of winding streets with lots of pitoresque bars, restaurants and shops. In calle Santa Teresa we encountered "Hostal Toledo " with rooms with a double bed and a private bathroom just slightly more expensive (50 Euro a night per room) than the Triana Backpackers.  and decided to move their for the last night since it was too late to change for this day. After that we had a drink on a terrace in the sun (we had sun and 30 degrees Celcius for 3 days)

We decided to visit the Reales Alcázares the former palace/fortress of several moorish and christian kings. It resembles the Alhambra in some ways although a lot smaller and missing the stunning whitecapped mountains of the Sierra Nevada on the background but it is still very beautiful and well worth a visit. Entrance fee is around 7 Euro per person with discounts for students, senior citizens and children but this varies per year. A electronic tourguide will cost an additional 3 or 4 Euro and access to the Cuarto Real Alto, the richly decorated set of rooms still reserved for the Spanish royal family will cost another 3 Euro. We ended the tour with a stroll through the gardens whit its huge palmtrees.

After the Reales Alcázares we were quite hungry and went looking for a nice tapasbar in the neighborhood. We found one, "Mesón de la Infanta ", in Calle dos de Mayo a side street of the Paseo de Cristobal Colón which runs along the east side of the river Guadalquivir. The tapas were very good as well as the wine. The desert were rather expensive and we've had better in Spain.

After lunch we went to the Parque de Maria Luisa which is about a 20 minute walk and had a little nap in the grass. Refreshed we went to the Plaza de España which has a semi circular structure with some Seville tilework expressing the provinces of Spain. After having another drink we went back to the hotel to freshen up. Since the tapas we had the night before were really good we wanted to go back to "La Albahaca" but the place was really crowded to we walked south on Pagés del Corro until we saw a Venezolean restaurant called "Macuro" with quite an original menu. It was nice but rather oily smelling inside probably due to a bad extractor. We had dinner anyway but nobody was really enthusiastic about the food. With a lot of wine it wasn't too bad though. Geert and Patricia were tired so they went back to the hostal and we went on to find a bar. Bar "El Tejar" was supposed to have live flamenco on Friday according to our travel guide but didn't. It was a very busy place with lots of Spaniards between the age of 25 and 45 and no foreigners. Because their was no flamenco we went home after just one drink.