Day 87, 29 September 2012, Ole! Sevilla, Spain - Reasonably late start today, even by Spanish standards - on the road to Sevilla by 1 pm. Cracking roads, the autovia charged almost €13 for the return trip - worth every penny. Seville is one of those words that just contains the "ole" of Spain - we say Seville, all prim and proper. The say Sevill-ya! (ok.... still spelled Sevilla) and it sounds Exciting!!! First stop, and we knew it was going to be good because of the massive queue, was the Real Alcazar de Sevilla. This castle/palace with extensive gardens was incredibly lush and a beautiful and serene place - we even saw two separate brides and grooms getting stunning wedding photos in the grounds. This royal palace was originally built as a moorish fort. The moorish influence was very familiar after having visited Morocco and Turkey, but it was leavened by the Castillian royalty and crests and coats of arms were everywhere. We stood under ceilings that had witnessed royal marriages and walked through the room where a royal birth had occurred. Next stop, before we dropped of starvation, was lunch.... 4 pm.... even Spaniards look starved by this time. We strolled the district of Santa Cruz which is full of typical white and yellow Andalusian architecture, winding alleys, 3 story apartment buildings and lush courtyard gardens which can be glimpsed through wrought iron gates. Carmen had one of her little bits of paper with the name of our target cafe and via multiple effusive discussions with council workers, shop keepers and assorted locals, we arrived at Las Terrassas which was Jamon-heaven - dozens of legs of pork hanging from the ceiling. Now on the subject of Jamon... in spanish, the j is pronounced h thus Juan or Jose are Hoo-warn and Ho-say. The C is pronounced "th" thus Valen-thia. Just to make things clear, Z is also pronounced "th". So the clothing store Zara, becomes Thara. Right. and V is pronounced B. So nine (9) which is nueva becomes nueba. And lunch, which I´m getting to is comere-tha. Still haven´t sorted out the spelling on that... but Cena is dinner. Pronounced They-nar. Getting back to our 4 pm lunch - prawn fritters, deep fried fish morsels and tiny crumbed fillets, just like the smallest flounders in the world, only 5 inches long. And of course a bottle of Blancos.... wouldn´t want to offend local sensibilities. And we´re developing our own sensibilities... late start, booze at lunch, dinner at bed and another late start. Thus fortifed we headed back through the alleys and checked out the beautiful Cathedral of Seville, just from the outside mind you because hordes of faithful were waiting to get in for a visiting priest event. Having been to the Andalusian dancing horses in Jerez and finding them just gorgeous, we negotiated the €50 official price for a horse and carriage ride around the sights of Seville down to €40 unofficial price (too many months haggling in Africa...) We saw our same drivers later on with 4 lovely local young ladies in the carriage. Not sure what the "can we see you later" price is! We clipped-y clopped our way past the Tower of Gold, The Giralda Tower, the University, the Plaza de Espana and ended up stopping just short of the Cathedral to have a look around a very, very (very) posh hotel - The Alfonso VIII. Aside from lovely bathrooms very conveniently located off the main lobby, they also have an antique dealer on the premises wherein one might purchase a pair of gold and garnet earrings from the 2nd century AD or assorted other trinkets of similarly "antique" status. We saw items in the window for €10,000 odd. Which made us very nervous about the things marked "Price on Application" - that is for sure. We spent all day in Sevilla unaware that someone in Spain had picked up the €100,000,000 Euromillions jackpot. After a moment or two of excitement as we ratted out our tickets, we were hideously disappointed to find it wasn´t us. Sigh.... back to the drawing board. No nights at the Alfonso in immediate future. Getting onwards for 7 pm we had just enough energy for icecreams down by the river before jumping back in the car and opening all the windows to keep us awake for the drive home.... Speed limits are very sensibly quite high in this country, otherwise everyone would die of frustration. So we bowled along at 140km/hour, with our heads out the window to wake us up. With our ears flapping ever so slightly we must have looked like a VW full of labradors. Moon is completely full tonight - aside from giving James and I an excuse for a chorus of "werewolves of London - arrr-whoooooo", it means the ghost might walk the castle walls here in Arcos.... but more on that tomorrow.