Could we do any more in one day? Spain Day 7

I woke up stressed and anxious. We had a lot to do.

First up we needed to do laundry BAD. Unfortunately the laundry place didn’t open til 10 so we decided to go to the Basilica de la Macarena first since it opened early. But before we did that we needed to go to the grocery store to get drinks and eye drops for Danny. Unfortunately they didn’t have any eye drops but I got some delicious Sunny Delight!! We went back to the hotel, dropped the sunny de in the frig and hopped on a bus to the Basilica to see the famous weeping virgin.

It took us awhile to find mostly because it was hidden behind this wall (picture above) but we finally got inside and saw the statue. It was interesting…they dress her up and apparently parade her around the city during Seville’s Holy Week. We did not pay the $$ to see the museum of parade floats. We jumped back on the bus and headed to our hotel. In a mad rush we got our laundry and had to walk about 20 mins to the laundry place. I felt like a bit of an idiot carrying all these bags of laundry with me through the streets and main plaza but there was no other choice. Lucky for us the place is a drop off laundromat although expensive it was a bit cheaper than the do-it-yourself place. The lady told us she would have our laundry ready at 6:30. Perfect!

Next we ran to the Cathedral to get in line. The day before there had been a huge line to get in but our early arrival made so we only had to stand in line about 10 mins. I was really angry when we got our tickets because it was super expensive. I felt the Catholic Church was really taking us for our money. It was about $15/person to get in!!! We saw the cathedral in all its massiveness, did Rick Steves’ self-guided tour…got lost of course…, and saw Columbus’ tomb. Of course we weren’t supposed to take pictures inside but I felt for $30 I was going to get some pictures.

Danny in front of Columbus’ tomb

The altar made from new world gold…literally

The massive interior

The Cathedral is built over the ruins of a mosque however the Moorish minaret still remains as the Cathedral’s bell tower (now called the Giralda Tower). The tower has a ramp you can climb to the top so of course we climbed it. It is tall!! In the times of the mosque a horseman would ride to the top of the tower and call Muslims to prayer.

View from the top of the Giralda Tower

Me at the top! I made it!

Danny in front of the Cathedral

The Giralda Tower

The Giralda Tower from a distance

After the cathedral we decided to walk to the river and Golden Tower. The Golden Tower was the starting point and ending point for all shipping to the New World. Today it is a maritime museum. We chose not to do the museum as we had a lot to do.

Me in front of the Golden Tower

Next we decided we needed to get lunch. Luckily there was a McDonald's near by so we ate there. They were running a special and we got 2 coke glasses…however…we left them there (by the end of our trip we could have had a whole collection of glassware!). We decided to walk around the Maria Lusia Park and Plaza Espana. The park was great. Really tropical and lots of shade and the Plaza Espana was pretty although we would have liked to see it in all its glory (Spain has lots of cool water features but they never have any water in them to Danny’s dismay and frustration).

Danny loves the shade!

For all my corporate event planner friends out there…this is one bad-a corporate event setup….it was a dinner with all these “stores” setup where people could go get their meals. Wish I could have gotten a better pic. It was going to be lit at night by torches!

Yes...me in the fountain

Soaking wet from getting in the fountain

A lot of places in Spain have these cute buggy’s you can ride in….I kind of wanted to go but it’s so expensive…45 euros!

By now Danny’s eyes were seriously killing him. He couldn’t see and he needed to take his contacts out and get some serious eye drops from the pharmacy. So we headed back to the hotel to take his contacts out and try to find a pharmacy. Unfortunately all the pharmacies were closed due to siesta so we hung out drinking our sunny de for a bit. Finally the pharmacy opened and we got some eye drops. Danny went back to the hotel to put the drops and his contacts back in while I did some serious shopping,

At first I was annoyed by our hotel. It was quite nice but what I thought was too far from the sites. Then I discovered that it is right next to the shopping paseo (pedestrian street) leading to the sites…which meant every time we went anywhere I got to do some window shopping. So I used this Liz time to check out the stores I had been eyeing. Unfortunately Danny told me he would meet me in Zara’s in 20 mins so it left me too worried about missing him to try clothes on. I ended up walking around the store forever holding a bunch of clothes and listening to very inappropriate R-Kelly music. Finally he came and I ended up getting nothing from Zara’s. I did get a pair of cute sandals at a store down the street. Yeah!

We had to run to get our laundry because it was past 6:30 and we were afraid the place would close soon. We made it in time however I misplaced our slip of paper for our pickup so Danny was worried they wouldn’t know which stuff was ours. Lucky for us we had laundry they probably had never seen before (and were confused by) so they remembered us the second we walked in the door. We paid them the big bucks and laughed about what they must have thought of us on our walk back to the hotel.

At the hotel we debated over what to do for dinner and if we were going to a flamenco show. I really wanted to go to a Flamenco show but they mostly started at 8 or 9 and it was already past 7 and we didn’t have tickets or know where to go. Finally I convinced Danny to go down to one of the theaters to see about tickets. We got there barely in time for the show and it was already sold out. However, they did have tickets left for the 10 show (show is 2 hours) but that would put us walking back to the hotel at midnight and we had already had a long day. I wasn’t sure about this and the show was really expensive but I felt we had to see a flamenco show while in Spain and Seville is the capital of Flamenco. Danny really didn’t want to see the show but he finally gave in. So we decided to go get dinner and Danny had to go back to the hotel to do more eye drops. We grabbed a quick sandwich and shared it for dinner and made it back to the theater in time to get front row seats. The show was amazing and Danny (and I) had a really good time.

Danny having a good time at the Flamenco show

The castanets

The fan

Everyone dancing! (The guy looks like a vampire in this picture! Scary!)

After the show we speed walked home and had no problem falling asleep. What a busy day! We got everything done we needed to except using the internet to print maps. Oh well…not like we are good at following the map anyways. Tomorrow Cordoba!