After a somewhat leisurely breakfast we headed to plaza del Armas to the bus terminal where we had picked up Joline on Monday. We boarded the bus to Italica stopping in Santiponce to visit San Isodoro del Campo. It is a monastery founded in 1301. We were only allowed to visit a small section which contained two churches and a small courtyard. There was no signage in English therefore it was not easy to read the Spanish only signs. It was not very busy, apart from a group of small children we were the only ones there.
After visiting the monastery, we decided to walk to Italica since it was under 2 km to walk. It was obviously part of the route to Santiago de Compostella because we saw many signs along the way with the shell emblem of Compostel. It was a nice easy walk with a very small incline. Italica is free for European people but for us Canadians there is a small fee of 1,50 euros. Italica was the first Roman city founded on the Iberian Peninsula and the birthplace of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. We spent a few hours in the archaeological site. We even found a cache and with the help of two employees Joline was able to retrieve it. I was able to practice my Spanish with one of the ladies while Jacques and Joline signed the logbook.
We are enormously surprised by how few people speak English or French here in Seville. It is surprising for a city with so many tourists that everybody says they cannot speak English, restaurants, stores and museums.
We returned to Seville by bus. It took much longer to return than it had taken to get there. I did not realize until we were off the bus that there was an accident on the other side of the road and that was what had slowed down the traffic. We got off the bus in Triana and after eating lunch in a bar (by then it was past 3) we just wandered around different streets taking our time before returning to our apartment.
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