I became impatient listening to the tour guide explain 700 years of history. Already I calmly sat through a long bus ride from the port of Cadiz to Seville to get to the Royal Palace Gardens of Alcazar. I wanted only to see the garden. So. . . . I slipped away from our tour group.
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I found a courtyard with clipped myrtle hedges, framed by tiled archways, a terra cotta fountain splashing into a fish pond.
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Another court yard had tiled benches and a stairway lined with pots of rosemary leading up to a second level. The passage-way covered with vine created a shady walk and following this I quickly returned to the entry hall, rejoining the group.
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The tour guide was explaining the patterns of the tile work, illustrating its lack of symmetry due to the Islamic belief that perfection in symmetry challenged the perfection of god. I could not stay and listen.
Alcazar illustrates significant history in garden design. It began in the 12th century when Arab princes conquered Spain. Alcazar began as a Paradise garden for themselves and an ostentatious symbol of power. In this climate controlling the water supply was the most powerful control of life.
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I found the exit, but no sign of the group. I walked out on the street. No one familiar could be seen. I walked back in but was stopped by a guard telling me I could not re-enter. I explained I was separated from my group. He shrugged and let me pass.
I went into the gift shop. There are almost always stragglers from a tour hurrying with last minute shopping and there were. Not a single shopper from my group was there.
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I began to worry, I went back into the garden, to the main pool. I turned back toward the the dark passage way leading to the exit. Surrounded by people I heard Rich call my name. He too, had lagged behind in the garden and when he caught up to the group and discovered I wasn’t there he came back to find me. Now to find our way back to the bus alone through a maze of streets, groups of other tours, and local shoppers in the Old Jewish quarter of Seville. We came into a small unfamiliar square which had three exits. I knew the pickup point was at the bottom of the Murillo gardens, I asked a young man for directions, he pointed the way and we ran to catch our bus.