Seville

Walking to the station to catch the train to Seville, I was feeling blissful; the mimosa-scented morning promised me everything. Including no confusion or problem with mechanics of getting door to door in a new place. Of course, bliss has a way of making everything wonderful or at least interesting. On other trips, the travel time has been blank space, but the view from the window is so dramatic and mesmerizing that the time goes by, and, zip, you are in another world: Seville.

La Giralda: originally a mosque, now part of the cathedral.

I arrived at the train station and thought I could just take a bus to my airbnb place: and I did, but it took awhile. The station is in a place outside the tourist zone. I stopped for breakfast at a place a few blocks from the station in the general direction-- the distance was quite short on the map to the center city--and asked about buses... went to the bus stop and received other advice, etc., etc., but did in fact finally arrive in the right place, taking over an hour for a 20 minute trip-- but that's how you learn a city and its people.

The street nearby was littered with oranges. The cafes lining the street across from the cathedral and alcazar had a spray system like for produce in grocery stores that intermittently sprayed a fine mist on anyone in range--a delightful innovation whick, however, causes car tires to squeak on wet cobbles like a rubbed balloon. But the cafes, with their menus in English and Spanish, with big, garish color photos of the dishes, were to be avoided.
Once in front of the building where I had booked a room, an extremely helpful produce salesman spent at least 40 minutes helping me find the owner (we both had phone problems), get a key, and drop off my luggage. Glitch or wonderful episode? For me, something wonderful.

 My place was just a block from the cathedral, but tucked away so that it was quiet (except for the cathedral's bells) and free of even foot traffic. It was a courtyard house with a tiled courtyard and three levels of colonnades. Once a palace, it had been divvied up into many small apartments, professional offices and studios. The apartment where I was booked also hosted two Turkish girls on vacation and later, a woman from Northern Virginia. Juan Gonzalez, the host, showed up each evening bearing treats, like sangria, cold cuts and cheese, flaky olive oil pastries, and conversation in Spanish. It was great-- and something I might have avoided had I known about it in advance.

Seville is a wonderful place to wander. Some things I saw:
*Chinese girls trying on Seville souvenir hats and tshirts that were made in China.
*A dog walking with his owner along the river jumped in joyously, swam along, made a quick detour and snapped up a baby duck in one bite. Other ducks seemed unaware.
*A river cruise boat named "Surfer".
* workmen in front of the cathedral loading gilded ornaments and furniture from the Corpus Christi celebration onto a pickup truck.
*And many, many examples throughout the trip of the very old cheek to jowl with the very new: graffiti on ancient walls, modern hardware affixed to beams with gray, raised grain that must have been there before cars, planes, or indoor plumbing in their neighborhoods, and the like: exhiliarating.

Torre de Oro, on the banks of the Guadalquivir

The Torre de Oro is a landmark, originally a Moorish military building; but its name sounds like a pastry to me, or maybe a firework, or something else...

I took a tourist river cruise from there up the Guadalquivir and back, complete with inaudible comments on the view. The ride showed parts of Seville that I wouldn't have seen otherwise, including this Calatrava bridge.

Seville is a city of many lovely bridges: another, the Triana bridge, was designed by Eiffel, the same one who built the Eiffel tower in Paris. The Triana bridge crosses the Guadalquivir very near to the city center, connecting the main attractions: cathedral, alcazar, restaurants and bars, with Triana, a mostly residential areapreviously occupied by fishermen, gypsies, flamenco dancers, and tilemakers. It has narrow streets often inaccessible by car filled with residential flats that open to plazas 

Triana Bridge

with cafes and stores.When I was drawing this, sitting on a bench by the river, a man    sitting next to me started to watch me quietly. Finally, he suggested to me that I really shouldn't omit the cupola and     cathedral of Sta. Justa and Sta. Rufina, the city's patronesses. I thought there wasn'tspace, but, a              miracle! it all worked out. And here she is:

Farther down there is a former exposition site with a steel aqueduct-appearing structure:

 I had lunch
in Triana market, the only place that seemed open in Triana: it was 3:00. The market was closed until around 4:00 and had been hosed down, but still was heady with the smells of fish, flesh, cheese, and spilled beer. The menu del dia was a perfect gazpacho, red pepper omelet with a Spanish take on hash browns, and iced sweet red wine, a nice dessert. Not a great sketch, but people as near as Juan, my host, and as far as Cordoba immediately recognized it from the drawing-- a good sign!

 That evening, Juan, the bnb owner, stopped by with fried cheese, bread, melon, sangria, and his daughter. We talked about the petrification of the government, how women travel solo but not men (maybe the women just flock to airbnb?) and the new popular drink which I can't imagine will catch on here: condensed milk and coke. (In Madrid, it is various iterations of Gintonic).