Real Alcazar

The Real Alcazar is a royal palace and was originally developed by the Moorish Muslim kings.The palace is renowned as one of the most beautiful in Spain, being regarded as one of the most outstanding examples of mudéjar architecture found on the Iberian Peninsula. The upper levels of the Alcázar are still used by the royal family as the official Seville residence and are administered by the Patrimonio Nacional. It is the oldest royal palace still in use in Europe, and was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

It is a monumental complex that retains seven hectares of gardens and seventeen thousand square meters of buildings, was an authentic military and palatine acropolis that brought together several palaces and urban defenses still preserved that cover a wide chronological area between the 11th and 16th centuries with later modifications, having been the main palace of the Abbadí taifa kingdom, seat of one of the three capitals of the Almohad empire, palace of the Castilian monarchy during the Late Middle Ages and Royal House during the Early Modern Age. [Wikipedia]

A visit to the Alcazar (pronounced Al-kas-r) was our big hit of culture today. We had a booking to view the upper floors that are part of the Royal residence at 10.00 but needed to have "checked in' by 9.45 so we arrived at the entrance at 9.25ish to be around 75m back in the queue for those who had booked tickets - alongside was another queue somewhat longer of folk who had just rocked up, how long it would be before they got through the gate we will never know but our queue flowed quickly and off we went to find the entrance to the Cuarto Real Alto which is the upper levels referred to above.

Security check ✅, back pack locked away ✅ and we started the 20 minute walk through some well preserved rooms (no photos allowed) with minimal furniture but some very impressive tapestries on display.

After that tour we then strolled through the other parts of the palace that were open including the gardens

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Whilst the palace was "the same but different" from others we have visited it was the strong Moorish features and the absence of the extravagant paintings, furniture and artefacts that are ever present in others that made the visit memorable.

Another novelty we experienced today was an overcast sky that kept the lid on the temperature at least till we started walking back to the hotel around 2pm - from then on it climbed to around 30 degrees which gave an excuse for another swim!

Tonight we are going to a Flamenco 💃 performance - I hope that audience participation is not required, if it is I trust allowances can be made for someone with two left feet!