Seeing the queues outside the Real Alcazar yesterday we took the precaution of prebooking a slot for today. I’m glad that we did as it was busy both inside and out.
Real Alcazar sounds like it should be a football team (at least I think so) in the same vein as Real Madrid and Real Bettis but is, in fact, an amazing Moorish palace. It is a little like the TARDIS as once inside it seems to cover a huge amount of ground that doesn‘t seem possible when walking around the exterior.
It is difficult to put in words just how beautiful the interior of the Alcazar is. The walls are decorated with brightly coloured tiles in simple repeating patterns or grouped to form pictures. Door frames are delicately carved and then hand painted to bring out the design. And ceilings are, well, you can see from the picture above. It must have been an amazing place to live when it was first constructed.
Outside are some simple but very peaceful gardens full of orange and lemon trees laden with fruits. As ever it is a fine place to go to escape the crowds who congregate in throngs in the small rooms and not making it much further.
In the end we spent a couple of hours there drinking in the place and despite this being our second visit I could easily imagine coming back again in the future.
Something that we didn’t get a chance to expereince last time we were here (because it was shut) was the Metropol Parasol. This is a curious wooden structure (allegedly the largest in the world) that looks to have been slotted together like one of those childrens toys that turns into a three dimentional dinosaur.
You can go up at any time of the day but we chose to go at night when we would be able to look over to the cathederal lit up and see the whole city. You take a lift up to the start of a walk way that snakes over the top of the structure giving some great views. I’m glad that we did it but it doesn’t kill much time.
