Seville - Tirana Markets, Royal Shipyards and Tapas Tour

Hola

We catch the bus into Seville and spend the afternoon visiting the Triana Market, then the Royal Shipyards and finally onto our Tapas tour at 5.45pm.

Triana Market (a 25 minute walk from the centre of town) is a relatively small market with the usual seafood, meats, cheese, olives for sale, but like a lot of these European markets, half the space is devoted to food stalls/restaurants and many are in full swing as are all the pavement restaurants around the outside (it is Saturday after all!) We watch a stall holder carving a new Jamon straight of the leg of a pig (not alive at this stage), using 3 different knives to first cut off the hard outside skin, then the fat layers before getting the long thin sharp blade into the ‘gold’ which he uses to cut small morsels to lay on a charcuterie platter - quite the process.

Tirana Markets entrance

Tirana Markets

Outside we wander around the pedestrianised Main Street checking out which gelato shop will get our business today. We decide on the best looking one, and the medio (medium) gelato is quite large, and also I think more expensive than the others we looked at - probably could have chosen the pequeña (small one) perhaps - oh well, let's just eat it and enjoy!

"Medium" gelato!

We wander around the streets and marvel at all the fabulous buildings etc.

Archway

One or two other people out enjoying mall in Old town

Walk along river

Old ship along river

Back across the river we hunt down the Royal Shipyards that have been refurbished and are free to enter at the moment as they are bare without any displays or presentations. Its quite amazing in that its a medieval shipyard that operated from the 13th to 15th century. It was connected to the river by a stretch of sand. This is where they built ships back in the day (used for transport of goods and also for battles) and once built they somehow got the boats to the river.

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Now before I start on "The Torre de Oro", which is now a naval museum, I must mention that I'm in trouble with the editor/boss/blogger/camerman in that I described it as a "water tower" and it isn't (of course!), its a damn naval museum. Anyway, we go to The Torre de Oro and visit the naval museum. We climb the tower (only 91 steps, so it’s an easy one). Lovely views across the city skyline and some interesting naval history to boot.

View from top of Tower

View from top of tower

Replica of old ship

Okay, let’s get cracking we have a Tapas tour at 5.45 and we have 30 minutes to get there but we should be fine as it’s a 20 minute walk. EXCEPT the *****ing GPS gets confused in the alleyways and keeps changing the directions and we think we went in a great big circle with a few cross radius spikes as well - when you are in the middle of these alleys you really have no clue where you are or where you are going!
So we arrive late, v flustered, and can’t find the Guide. Have they left without us? Bob tries running around in a panic but that doesn’t help. Nor does standing there saying F**k, F**k, F**k, and waving his hands in the air. We try to ring, but can’t get through so Bob continues to wave his hands in the air trying to attract attention - looking like a downright fruit loop!!

Manuel our guide has actually answered the phone but Bob can’t hear him because his is waving his phone in the air saying F**k, F**k, F**k again. Fortunately Manuel spots us - he sees Bob running around with his hands in the air and reckons that must be the couple he's looking for!! 😮‍💨. The only consolation is 2 Americans from Tennessee are also lost and don’t catch up with us until we get to our first Bar (they walked for 40 minutes for a 2 minute walk from their hotel and then gave up and caught a taxi). Anyhow time to relax!

The Tapas Tour is excellent with lots of different foods and wines. And Manuel is, shall we say, flamboyant and constantly referring to the group as his ‘leetle naughty cheeldren’.

Foodwise we had Pork belly slices, Pringa, Goats cheese, Sardines, vegetable ‘stew’, Chorizo ‘stew’, Solomillo in whisky (Pork in a creamy mushroom caramelised onion sauce marinated in whiskey), and others I have forgotten (but we have the list if you want it).

Drinks wise we had Tinto de verano (a sweet sour sort of spritz on first taste not sure but then v nice), Manzanilla de Sanlúcar de Barrameda. (Sherry wine Palomino Fino grape), Condado de Huelva. Zalema grape, Rioja. Tempranillo grape, and Vino de Naranja Pedro Ximénez grape.

Tapas tour group

Our tapas group with tour guide Manuel at front

One of bars we visited on our tapas tour

Night time shot of part of Alcazar

Someone (me) who only has 2 drinks maximum normally, drank them all and didn’t give any extras to Bob which disappointed him somewhat!!
But it was a fabulous night, met some interesting people (and surprisingly 5 of 10 were Aussies given we have rarely run into any others, 2 Londoners, 1 Glaswegian, and 2 Tenesseeans), great guide, great food and drink - well worth the damage to the credit card!

Over and out for another day.