It’s a short day today – we’re only in port until 1pm, so we make the best of our short time here by getting out fairly early to wander the streets.  We only have a couple of stops we want to make – one of which is to a shop we saw last night with fans we want to buy for the girls – fortunately they are all close by the ship.  We meander off around 9:30 and make our way into the heart of the old town, passing the Palacio de San Telmo which is now just beautiful in the sunlight (as opposed to hauntingly beautiful in the moonlight last night).

On our way up the street we notice the door open to the store we planned to visit.  Approaching just as the saleslady is putting out displays on the sidewalk we start to enter, but she very nastily tells us they aren’t open yet.  Um, ok, we’ll come back? Maybe?  Maybe not with that attitude!  Sheesh.  So, on we go, back up to cathedral square where oddly enough we can go into the cathedral for free.  Ok – it’s beautiful in there and last time we visited we had to pay, we’re not going to miss this opportunity to marvel at the architecture, the gold and silver, and the massive domed ceilings.

After that surprise visit, we continue up Avenida de la Constitucion in search of the Archivo General De Indias, opened in 1785 to hold documents recounting the history of ‘Las Indias’ or the New World.  There are reputedly more than 6 miles of bookshelves and over 80 million pages of documents contained wihtin the building, and a temporary exhibition we can visit.  Unfortunately, we can’t find anything that even resembles an entrance to the archives at the address we have.  It is bizarre.  There is a small side door that seems to lead to offices or even apartments and a huge bank office on the rest of the ground floor.  We sort of circle the building looking for any signs, but finding nothing, give up on our search (it was just something to fill the time), solace ourselves with taking pictures the Ayuntamiento (which is majestically gorgeous) then head back toward the riverfront.

Along the way we find another store with a much nicer saleslady and equally nice fans, along with some great mask chains that will help our mask wearing immensely then find a little café for cappuccino.  Unfortunately, this place is slam packed and only one waiter who takes forever to come wait on us and then forever to bring us our cappuccino.  We don’t really have anyplace to go, except the ship, and we are in the sun on a gorgeous day, so it’s really all right in the long run.  Of course the great thing about Europe, too, is that you don’t have to wait for the check!  Once we’re done, I just walked inside and paid.  Easy peasy.

As we near the ship, we still have plenty of time to spare, so we take a detour around the circle, past the Juan Sebastian de Elcano monument and fountain, then into the Parque de Maria Luisa to the Plaza de Espana, supposedly the most famous square in Seville.  Designed for the Ibero-American exhibition in 1929, it is a huge semi-circle filled with Spanish Renaissance style buildings, gorgeous mosaic cobblestones and a Venice-like canal water feature.  You can even rent a boat here to paddle around the canals – sort of Venice-like just with no gondolier. 

A very pleasant walk and exploration to end our visit to Seville.  And a totally simple and quick walk back to the ship.

Before we know it we are sailing back down the Guadalquivir river, watching the drawbridges close behind us in reverse or our trip up the river on Wednesday.  We’re pretty content to hang out on the balcony watching the farmland slip past us, the ferries gliding from one side of the river to the next and the sun setting over the vast empty fields. 

This part of our trip is almost over – amazingly enough, to us, we will be in Lisbon tomorrow and off the ship on Sunday.  Wow. That went fast!