14 May

The landlady let us leave our packs in a storeroom so we could spend our last day in Seville relatively unfettered. Janene counted the stairs to our room: 62 steps plus a couple of hallways and an outside roof patio. We walked back to the river, this time without all the zigs and zags, and explored the old part of Seville on our own before taking a guided walking tour after lunch. Thanks to our guide, we decided to visit the Alcazar, the historic (and present, actually) royal palace. This is the place where Columbus sold Ferdinand & Isabella on the "route to India" idea. It's a pretty amazing place. The current monarchs still stay there when they are in town. Joe tried to buy some cookies from cloistered nuns, where they put their goods on a turntable and then you send the money back the same way, so that you never see each other. However, they were either sold out, didn't bake today, or gave the enterprise up without advertising the fact. Whatever the reason, "No cookies for you."

We picked up our packs at the hotel and hiked to the train station with about 2 hrs to spare. When we were milling around trying to find two seats together in the waiting area, we saw a sign for the Sala Club and Janene remembered that we have rights to a waiting area for first-class passengers. Too bad we didn't know about this in Barcelona! Free food, free drinks, including beer, comfy seats, tables with power outlets for computers, and no swarming masses. This may be bad for us – seeing how the other half lives.

We are now on the train to Madrid. OMG!!! Uniformed stewards, free beverages and snacks, nice seats, movie, and 155 mph smooth as glass. American Airlines can kiss my @#%$&.

We arrived in Madrid, caught the Metro from our arriving station to another station about 10 min away, ate and drank more in the Sala Club, and boarded our sleeper train for Lisbon. The hotel train was a bit of a disappointment after the fast train, as it was much rougher and noisier, but they gave us a goody bag and a very nice breakfast.

roof patio	Catedral de Sevilla	patio in Barrio de Santa Cruz	cloistered nuns turntable
La Giralda	Plaza del Triunfo

Royal Alcazar of Seville

Patio de la Montería	Fuente de Neptuno	Alcubilla sign	Alcubilla Courtyard (NE of Patio del Crucero)
sign for Admiral's Room	Admiral's Room	royal bedroom	Apeadero (at SW corner of Patio de Banderas)
hotel train to Lisbon	sleeping compartment