City of oranges

Everywhere you look in Seville there are orange trees and at the moment they have a lot of fruit. Apparently there are around 50,000 orange trees in the city. They are all, as one might have suspected, bitter oranges - the kind of oranges we know as Seville Oranges. So, even if they weren’t owned by the authority so can’t be picked, one wouldn’t want to eat them anyway. Trees grown originally for all year round attractiveness and provision of shade, since the 18th century significant quantities of the oranges have been exported to England for marmalade.

We have a very gracious hotel close to the centre - our own room terrace has a view of the Cathedral. We have wandered the central streets and the maze of narrow alleyways of Santa Cruz. We have been around and inside the magnificent Cathedral. I am loving the colours and mosaics that are to be found everywhere. And the light. A beautiful city that we are getting to know and like very much. We have found great coffee and sat outside a cafe sharing a dish of Paella. It isn’t exactly hot and can be quite chilly, but the sunshine is constant and wonderful. There are quite a few visitors around but it is not busy.