Beautiful city of Seville

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17^th September - 20^st September

Seville

Arrived in Seville late last night.  The most amazing cab ride yet!  The guy was driving 160 on the motorway - fine.  But then he started playing online poker on the laptop that was sitting on the passenger seat.  Things started getting even more dicey when he decided we reeeaaallly needed to get to the hotel in a hurry and the fastest way was to average 110kph.... in a 50k zone!  Still yelling at the laptop - he obviously wasn't doing too well in the poker (should have asked Carmen for some tips).

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Straight to a lovely local tapas restaurant that was recommended to us and therefore straight into a new language, plenty of blank looks and confusion.  Managed to order what we thought we wanted which tasted buenisimo (bloody good)!

18^th September

Awoke to hot weather and plenty of sunshine - so sad to leave the rain in London!  Loads of walking today, starting with the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville_Cathedral).  It's the largest Gothic cathedral and the 3^rd largest church in the world.  After all of our travels we're pretty good at avoiding scams now but Carmen got done well.  Lady approaches speaking Spanish, places twig in Carmen's hand, starts telling fortune (at least that's what it seemed like), then demands money.  Rather surprised by it all, Carmen hands over 1 Euro, which apparently wasn't enough for such a wonderful service.  The lady demands more!  At least one word is universal, No .... Lesson - strange ladies handing out random twigs should be avoided.  Cathedral was very cool - and very big.  Next stop, Alcazar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcázar_of_Seville), the Royal Palace of Seville.  Huge and very beautiful, both inside and out.  This is an amazing example of both Moorish and Christian architecture, built in the 14^th century.

The Twig
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Our next wander was down by the river towards the bull ring.  Fortunately, no bulls being killed today.  Poked our noses in but decided not to do a tour.  We finished our 6 hour walking tour with a great Spanish meal (tapas of course).

19^th September

The Casatrendle running tour of Seville.  We started with a nice little run along the river down to the amusement park then back through the east part of the city.  Being a Saturday there were people everywhere which added to the experience of jogging through incredibly narrow and windy streets punctuated with plazas filled with people eating and drinking.  Made it back to the main square through the shopping district and had yet another bocadillo (yummy crusty bread filled usually with delicious jamon and queso - which we're now thoroughly sick of).

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While running back to the hotel we saw a big fare in a park and wandered into an international food festival.  We went back and enjoyed some food and did lots of people watching, including the cooking of a 2ft squid (decided not to eat that one).

Visited the amazing Plaza de Espana which was the site for the 1929 world trade fair (the newest building in Seville by 200 years).  The whole plaza is covered in mosaic tiles depicting all of the areas around Spain.  Got some great photos.