Sevilla - Palace - The Alcazar

The royal palace in Seville is called the Alcazar, it was originally a Moorish fort and Alcazar mears "palace" in Arabic...thank goodness for Wikipedia! The royal family of Spain actually still uses the palace when they are in Seville. For the most part it was an emtpy maze of building with lots of moorish arches, tiled patterns and dead ends!!! It also had some beautiful gardens, hard to appreciate in 110 degree weather though! Although we did appreciate the many fountains as we used them to cool ourselves off periodically. I'm sure the King and Queen would love to look out their window and see us practically bathing ourselves in their fountains!

Lily pad pond at the entrance

One of the ceilings
Courtyard

One of the many little courtyards...this one smelled amazing b/c of the Magnolia trees

Further confirmation of my theory that they number 3 is significant in Arabic culture...I should wikipedia that and see if I am right!

Another courtyard

Moorish architecture

Another courtyard...it was really hard to find your way out of this place!

They had tiling like this all over the walls and floors of the palace, each room was a different pattern

headed out to the main gardens

mossy fountain...we did not use this one to cool ourselves!

PEACOCK!!!

pretty flowers

Zeus...this is the fountain we cooled off with...his water was a little cleaner!

The baths....you have no idea how close I was to jumping in...instead Ana and I resisted and headed back to the hotel pool..