Alcazar de Sevilla

I had a good night’s sleep (and so did Jennifer but her’s was on a plane, so that’s relative). There was no real news on Jean’s condition this morning – stable and some improvement probably covers it; although the tone was much more positive today. I did wake up a bit down: This next month was supposed to be a joint holiday, so that’s going to make the coming weeks a bit weird – but it is what it is.

I had breakfast on my terrace and then headed out to get a sense of the neighbourhood. My apartment is in the old town and so is a short walk from pretty much all the sights. I followed twisting streets down to the river which was lovely even though it was already getting hot. Today’s high, at 34 degrees, is the lowest forecast for this week.

If there was a word for a word that represents the thing it is describing, ‘alcazar’ could be the exemplar. Alcazar the word was a originally a Roman word for an encampment. It got adopted by the Muslim North African empires and converted into an Arabic word for fortress or palace. And from there it was smoothed into Spanish – where it’s pretty tightly associated with the Alcazar de Sevilla (although there are numerous other alcazars scattered across Sothern Spain).

The thing that makes the place parallel the word is that the Alcazar de Sevilla was built as a Muslim fortress on the site of Roman military post around 930. The Almohad era saw it expanded beautifully in the 12th and 13th Centuries. Then the Christians conquered the south and continued building on it, notably the Catholic Monarchs added Gothic wings. And today it’s still an official residence of the Spanish Royal family.

The net result of all that is a very beautiful building surrounded by lovely, intricate gardens. I think the Almohad architectural style is my favourite. It is always so perfectly thought through: angles leading to other views, breezes pushed into courtyards, water bubbling and flowing.

The Alcazar is incredibly popular as a tourist destination and we had booked tickets well in advance. Apparently about a million other people had done the same. Luckily hardly any of them could be bothered going into the gardens which meant they were both shady and quiet. Weirdly that also meant the baths were practically deserted even though they may be the most beautiful part of the building.

I had lunch in the restaurant practically beneath my apartment. It’s too early to say it will become my local because (a) there are two others within spitting distance and (b) it doesn’t have ensalada de queso de cabra on the menu. Time will tell.

My final outing for the day was to do some more shopping. I set out for a supermarket about 10 minutes away that looked larger than the Carrefour Express round the corner. It proved only slightly larger and a bit disappointing. There is probably something you can read into the fact there was no shower gel but half a shelf of foot-antiperspirant (which until today I did not know was a thing). There’s another supermarket I’ll try after school tomorrow on the basis that it is closed today – my theory is that the larger ones tend to open less frequently.

Tomorrow I’m off to school.