Weekend in Seville in Mar 2023: Day 5 – Morning in Seville

The night wasn’t a great one for sleeping. I was up a few times and Vick was a bit restless. I did sleep through til 5:30am however, so from that perspective I did pretty well. Vick slept another hour or so.

We headed out for our now normal daily early morning Starbucks at around 8am. Vick had some hassle at Starbucks – the non-fat drinks they made for her tasted odd. She eventually had to accept a semi-skimmed version of her favourite drink.

Back to the hotel and we met the Keevils in breakfast at not long after 9am. The food was excellent as always and we enjoyed a few jokes with our favourite waiter who also works at San Marco just around the corner.

Vick also realised that her sunglass and white bag were missing – likely she has either left them somewhere or they fell out of her bag. We looked high and low, but couldn’t find them. I even popped into San Marco later in the day and had no luck there either.

Today, the plan was to head towards the Mushroom (Metropole Parasol) with a bit of shopping thrown in along the way, finishing up at the gluten-free Mexican restaurant that the Keevils had found the other day. Vick and I were looking forward to the food! Vick was also looking forward to some shopping.

We had asked about a late checkout, but unfortunately, with the hotel full, the best they could do was 12:30pm – an extra 30 mins. Based on where we were likely to be, that wasn’t going to be any help to us, so we fully checked-out when we left for the Mushroom at about 10am.

We went slightly different ways with the Billinghams going via Sunglasses Hut, so that Vick could but some new sunglasses. That purchase was processed fairly swiftly and we progressed onto the Mushroom.

We paid for tickets; namely a visit to the panoramic terraces and the multi-sensory experience of Seville (in widescreen film format).

The Mushroom consists of six setas (parasols) in the form of giant mushrooms. These were inspired by the vaults of the Cathedral of Seville and the ficus trees in the nearby Plaza de Cristo de Burgos.

See Wikipedia.

The Setas are organized on four levels.

• The underground level (Level 0) houses the Antiquarium, where Roman and Moorish remains discovered on site are displayed in a museum.
• Level 1 (street level) is the Central Market. The roof of Level 1 is the surface of the open-air public plaza, shaded by the wooden parasols above and designed for public events.
• Levels 2 and 3 are the two stages of the panoramic terraces (including a restaurant), offering a view of the city.

The multi-sensory experience was interesting, but nothing to write home about. The film is shown every 15 mins and you have to wait outside for the previous showing to finish.

The panoramic terrace is excellent with good views of the city and a very interesting construction. Worthy of a visit if you are in the city!

We bumped into Andrew after we have left the panoramic terrace and we headed towards the Mexican restaurant that we planned to have lunch at. We then bumped into Sam and as a four, we were all set for a hearty lunch.

It was just hitting 1pm and the Mexican was only just opening, so we popped across the road to a bar and grabbed a drink. The sun was fairly warm at this point, so any time under a parasol at a bar was good time.

When we finally got a table at the Mexican, we were impressed by the online menu. As promised, everything was gluten free which meant Vick and Sam had free reign.

We started off with guacamole and quesadilla.

From the Mexican we went our separate ways: I headed back to the hotel, Andrew headed to the Mushroom and the girls headed for the shops. A dangerous separation, but Andrew and I trusted the girls wouldn’t run amok!

We finally met up at an ice cream parlour for some tubs. Fabulous at cooling us down and that was the final activity prior to heading back to the hotel for final packing.

Follow the whole story here: Weekend in Seville in Mar 2023