We slept in on Saturday February 8, still recovering from jet lag. Cloudy with a bit of sun and a high of 18C. Great walking weather. Our day started with an early afternoon trip to the Mercado de Feria (Feria Market), an indoor market which has over 100 vendors of fish, meat, fruit, cheese etc. and a number of small tapas places with seating on the outside of the market. It is the oldest market in Seville and is located beside a Church dating from the 18th century.
First, a picture from our Free Tour yesterday.
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Folks from Austria, Australia, Egypt, Jordan, London, Lisbon, Germany and Istanbul.
We were the lone North Americans. |
The fresh produce at the Market was terrific. We bought some artichokes, strawberries, tomatoes and lettuce at a few of the fruit and vegetable stands.
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| Fresh fruit and vegetables |
We found a great fish stall. We watched the fish guy clean and chop up some squid for a customer and then he filleted some salmon for us.
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| Preparing a customer's squid for dinner |
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| Our salmon |
We also found a great deli/cheese stall. We got some sheep cheese and Serrano ham for lunch. It turned out our server had lived for a while in Vancouver and his English was quite good.
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| Beautiful cheeses |
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| Outdoor tapas restaurants at the market. |
As we headed back to the apartment we walked through an organic and local Saturday market on the Alameda de Hercules just a few minutes from our place.
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| Saturday market |
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More fresh veg
We had a late lunch at the apartment and headed out at about 3:30 p.m. to first have a coffee at Parceria, a recommended spot near the Feria Market that had just closed for siesta at 1:30 p.m. after we had finished our market shopping.
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| Parceria-- very nice café |
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| With my oat cortado and Alano's café con leche |
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| Inside the café |
We then headed into the older Santa Cruz neighbourhood behind the Cathedral. We had planned to visit the Centro de Interpretacion Juderia de Sevilla, a Sephardic Museum that was supposed to be open daily. Unfortunately, there was a sign on the door indicating that it was "Temporarily Closed." We then stopped at the Tourist Office and got a list of monuments and museums with their hours. It also noted that this Museum was closed. A bit disappointing and disturbing.
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| Closed "temporarily" |
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| Another courtyard with beautiful tiles |
We wandered a bit and found a churros and chocolate place on a lovely square. Time for a late afternoon snack.
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| Alano and churros and chocolate |
We then realised we were very near a small hotel called the Amadeus where we had stayed many years ago on a very short visit to Sevilla with our friend who lives in the Algarve. I had remembered all the rooms with instruments and a piano room where one could play the piano. Alano had remembered we had breakfast on the rooftop. The place is now more expensive, but beautifully done.
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| Lots of alcoves with instruments |
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| One of the piano rooms |
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| More instruments |
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| View of the Cathedral tower from the Hotel Amadeus |
We then headed to our evening entertainment - flamenco at the Centro Cultural Flamenco Casa de la Memoria (House of Memory). We had booked the evening through the Free Tours which had recommended only two places in the city. The Casa de la Memoria has been operating since 1998 and is devoted to traditional flamenco with excellent dancers and musicians. The stage and seating area is quite small and there are no microphones, so that the audience can appreciate the authentic sound of true flamenco.
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| Sign in Lobby-- beautiful building and display area |
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| Sign outside of building |
The show lasted an hour and featured a guitarist, singer and two flamenco dancers. All were excellent, but the male dancer was a standout. I have seen flamenco groups in Toronto, but these two dancers were superb. We could only take pictures after the show and during a short encore.
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| The two dancers, singer and guitarist |
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| Two dancers and singers |
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| The encore |
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| He was amazing- did one long solo dance as well as two dances with the female dancer |
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| Last bows |
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| The guitarist |
It was a fantastic show. Yesterday our tour guide had told us that Flamenco was the dance of the working class and dealt with pain. He also said that any love story was going to end badly in Flamenco dancing. This was definitely the case in one of the dances we saw.
As we left the dance area, there was another room with an exposition of old flamenco posters.
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| Flamenco Poster exhibit |
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| Wall with posters |
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| Carmen poster from 1939 |
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| 1947 poster |
On the way back to the apartment, we passed a building with "Justicia social" and a gavel graffiti.
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| ? |
I worked on this blog while Alano made an excellent dinner of cod, zucchini, tomato, salad, wine and hazelnut cookies. A very relaxing day in Sevilla.
We stayed in the market area and talked to the guy who had lived in Vancouver. His former brother-in-law lives in Nanaimo.
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