Day 9 - Seville

As one should on vacation, we slept in a bit this morning and just grabbed some cookies from the room before heading out to explore the "Mushrooms".  Sounds intriguing, eh? Well, the "Mushrooms" happens to be what the folks in Seville call the Plaza de la Encarnacion. It is the world's largest wooden structure. For as large and overwhelming as the structure is, the name they give it seems to be a bit demeaning. But if I were going to name it anything, it would be a pecan waffle- just sayin'. As they were building it they came across some ruins which are still underneath the structure all glassed in- so we viewed some of the beautiful mosaics they uncovered. You could go to the top and walk around, but we chose not to because today in Seville it must be grade school field trip day. ;) So after paying the appropriate amount of tourist respects to the site, we moved on to the Hop on Hop off bus because our ticket was good for 24 hours and we were using it like a cab to go to the other side of town. However, I did fail to mention on the walk from the hotel to the Mushrooms we walked through an area of shops that will require further investigation!

We took the bus to the beginning of the Park Maria Luisa and first saw a unique building called Costurero de la Reina- meaning Queens sewing room- which was only one of many structures created in the early 1900s for the Ibero-American Exposition. The exhibits were designed to show the social/economic progress and culture of Spain- here comes Wiki again: 

The Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 was a world's fair held in Seville,Spain, from 9 May 1929 until 21 June 1930. Countries in attendance of the exposition included: Portugal, the United States, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, the Republic of Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. Each Spanish region and each of the provinces of Andalusia were also represented. The purpose of the exposition was to improve relations between Spain and the countries in attendance, many of which were former Spanish colonies. The city of Seville had prepared for the Exposition over the course of 19 years. The exhibition buildings were constructed in María Luisa Park along the Guadalquivir River. A majority of the buildings were built to remain permanent after the closing of the exposition. Many of the foreign buildings, including the United States exhibition building, were to be used as consulates after the closing of the exhibits. By the opening of the exposition all of the buildings were complete, although many were no longer new. Not long before the opening of the Exposition, the Spanish government also began a modernization of the city in order to prepare for the expected crowds by erecting new hotels and widening the medieval streets to allow for the movement of automobiles.

We walked all through the lovely gardens of the Maria Luisa park and then came upon one of the most beautiful buildings we've seen so far, the Plaza de Espana. This, too, was constructed for the Exposition. The carved wood ceilings and tiled bridges were just a few of the beautiful details of this huge horseshoe shaped structure. It seems like every large building in Spain is called a "palace", but if anything rated the word palace, it is this one - but they just call it a plaza! I suppose it's because no one has ever lived there and its design was meant for it to be used for offices after the expo. Several movies were filmed at The Plaza de Espana such as Lawrence of Arabia, the Star Wars Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones where it was the exterior of the City of Theed on the Planet Naboo, and more recently the 2012 film The Dictator. We walked all around and took lots of photos. The day is overcast, so I'm not sure how good the pics will be, but it was definitely a worthy photo spot. 

After our lovely visit to the park, we headed back to the hotel to unload our stuff and get some lunch. It is 3pm by now and our cookies are long gone. So as to not wonder around aimlessly looking for a place to eat, we just hopped back over to the Italian restaurant from last night for a pizza. Once there Guy ordered pizza with homemade sausage and I had pasta with marinara and buffalo mozzarella on it. We shared and both were really tasty. They closed their kitchen after the lunch rush (3:30ish) and so the waiter had time to visit with us for a bit. Same guy from last night. His English is really good because his father was from Seville but he grew up in Germany. He knows English, German, Spanish, Italian, and some French. Must be nice and I'm sure the owner of the restaurant loves him as most customers are probably tourists. As we got ready to pay, I realized I had left my purse at the hotel which had the credit card in it. Guy waited while I ran back over to hotel. Good thing it is just right across the street! Our dessert was a mini bag on M&Ms in the room and we headed for the rooftop for a nap (Guy) and blog time (me). The sun is in and out and when it is out it is hot. When it is in, you need a sweater! Funny. ;) Since it was High Tea, Guy warmed up with a hot chocolate and I had the orange and chocolate flavored tea.

We freshened up for dinner and headed out for some shopping. I hit a few places that I wanted to go back to, then we headed for the new shopping area we discovered today on the way to the Mushroom. Well, they must close at 9pm because no one was open. So we strolled around and starting looking for a restaurant we saw on Trip Advisor and the guy at the desk marked it on our map. We had to do quite a bit of winding, but we finally found it. It is called the La Brunilda, so we started looking for something that looked like Broomhilda. We are such non-Spanish speaking tourist geeks. But it worked and we found it - (they have a really fabulous logo btw). They were on a side street that looked abandoned, but I'm sure it is hopping during the day when all the gates are up and the shops are open. We got there after 9:30 and we had to wait. Once seated we ordered two Tapas, salted cod fritters and a mini burger. We got the fritters first and they were just a tiny bit cool in the middle. I ate one and a half and stopped. Guy finished off the remaining two, but they just needed to be in the fryer for just a few more minutes. Guy's mini burger came out and it looked beautiful. When he cut into it blood ran out. Even too rare for his taste. So he did send it back and apologized for not being specific on how he liked it. They waiter was very kind and definitely understood. They cooked it a bit longer and brought it back out - the same one because it was still cut in half. This time it was still too pink for me, but just right for Guy. So the table next to us had some kind of potatoes that looked yummy so I ordered them. Yummy indeed. They were fried halves of little new potatoes with the skins on. They were covered in a "spicy" tomato sauce and mayo. The spicy was not spicy, just what I would call zippy. It was great! This was plenty of food for us because we were not really that hungry anyway. It was just before 11pm when we left and people were still waiting outside. Crazy!

So maybe we'll get to bed tonight before 1am. ;) Tomorrow we've opted out of a side trip and we are going to do some shopping and see a few remaining sights. As one last note to finish out today's blog, I just want to say that texting/surfing and driving are prevalent here as well. Not only with regular drivers and cabbies, but even the guys driving the HORSE AND BUGGIES!  I'm trying like everything to get a shot of this - my photo goal for tomorrow!  LOL!