Legally Blonde's Proceedings

Wednesday, December 18th was a packed day of sightseeing in Sevilla.  I saw so much, and after I had uploaded 102 pictures for this day's post, I decided I had better split day 4 into two parts as well! I started with a short walk from my hotel to the Royal Alcázar.  For some reason, my phone's map sent me on a rabbit trail through the Barrio Santa Cruz, but I came out of the twists and turns to this great view of the sun shining on the Cathedral. The Royal Alcázar (Real Alcázar in Spanish) is like many other sights in this part of Spain... originally a palace in the 10th century for the Moorish state governors, then taken over by the Spanish Royalty in later years.  The core of the palace was rebuild beginning in the 1330's by Muslim workmen for the Christian King, Pedro I.  Pedro was either called "the Cruel" or "the Just" depending on your own personal outcomes with him.  This is actually still functioning as one of the royal family's h...

On Tuesday, December 17th, I left my pitstop in Córdoba for Sevilla (aka: Seville).  It's only about 40 minutes from Córdoba to Sevilla (2.5 hours from Madrid). Sevilla was a boom town in the 1500's thanks to the likes of Amerigo Vespucci and Ferdinand Magellan sailing from it's river harbor to the New World.  By the 1600's it was Spain's largest and wealthiest city.  Today, it's Spain's 4th largest city, and the capital of Analucía.  James Michener wrote, "Sevilla doesn't have ambience, it is ambience."  Y'all, Sevilla is just sublime. I had a big day scheduled for Wednesday, so for Tuesday afternoon, my plan was to hit up some of the things I didn't think I could get to the next day.  I took a taxi from the Santa Justa train station to my hotel in the Barrio Santa Cruz.  The Barrio Santa Cruz is described as the location of the "soul of Sevilla".  There are mazes of lanes and small plazas and most of the "streets...