Spain Day 4 - Perdidos!

We woke up early and had breakfast at our hotel; a mix of meats, breads, cheeses, cereal, a tasty potato and egg omlette, juice and cafe con leche.

After breakfast we headed out and were the first in line to visit the Alcazar - past experiences have made us paranoid about missing our train to Sevilla and we didn't want to miss it!

The Alcazar was quite beautiful and as most people know, said to be the inspiration for Walt Disney's design of Disneyland. We marveled at the amazing views from the Alcazar, the teeny tiny suits of armour on display, snapped a bunch of photos and then hit the road.

We packed up the car and began our stressful drive to the Madrid airport to return our rental car. After a brief stop to get a few last photos of Segovia's aqueducts we took an accidental twenty minute detour through the super narrow streets of Segovia but eventually found the highway.

We returned the car and took a taxi to Atocha train station with plenty of time to spare. The interesting thing (besides the history of the station) was the ode to Fox's "Lost" aka "Perdidos!" - very cool!

We picked up a few sandwiches at the station (along with a cheap not so great Malhou beer for me) and finally boarded the AVE to Sevilla.

After one teary-eyed viewing of "Dreamgirls" (in Spanish mind you) our train pulled into the Sevilla station. We piled into two taxis and checked into the Hotel Simon, a tired, quirky hotel that was unfortunately a bit too musty for me and fellow asthmatic Sharpie. The RRR's swapped rooms with us and all was well!

After some aimless wandering in the shopping district, we cleaned up and headed to the Barrio Santa Cruz for some tapas. First stop was Las Sacrista where we enjoyed two pithcers of sangria, some calamari frito, shrimp and garlic, steak with sherry and pine nuts and raisins and a jamon sandwich.

And because that wasn't quite enough to satisfy our tapas jones, we went a few doors down to Bar Belmonte and had albondigas (aka meatballs) and a seafood salad with shrimp, pollock and tomatoes.

The salad was quite refreshing and palate cleansing after the saltiness of the meatballs in their rich saffron sauce.

I wasn't expecting much from the seafood since it appeared to be something you might pick up at your local supermarket salad bar so imagine my surprise when I found a mouthful of fresh vinegary seafood instead!

Finally, we stopped where it was a bit touristy but we ordered even more shrimp and garlic, stuffed eggplant, vegetable hash and ham croquettes.

Everything was good but nothing was super memorable; making me question whether or not we've had "true tapas" on our evening's tapas crawl.

Of course with a full day of travel under our belts, we headed off to bed just as the locals were beginning their evening...