Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

A stash of 1,700 year old coins

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Seville is a great place to spend your birthday, and we had a great time exploring and celebrating.

Once again, the weather helped out a lot. It's been perfect here in Seville, although we did get a little shower go through late yesterday afternoon.

We had an early lunch and it was just after noon when we finally went out. We headed over to the Parque Maria Luisa across the river from us to see more of the sights.

Out for a walk in the park.

Mudejar Pavillion, which now houses the Mueum of Art and Popular Costume, built in 1928.

Glen and Steve had told us about the Archaeological Museum here in Seville, located at the edge of the park. It is here that they have on display the hoard of Roman coins that was discovered only last April near Seville. It was on all the world news at the time because it was such an odd discovery. Some workmen had been doing waterline inspections and came across a bunch of containers.

You can read a news article here...


We wanted to see the coins, but didn't have a great interest in the museum itself. Fortunately, entrance fee was only €1.50 each.

A huge Roman mosaic. There were several of them this large. 
I can't figure out how they dug them up and got them into the museum!

Mercury...the god of travel!

They have the coins on display in a room of their own. Great display, and a lot of explanation, but most of it was in Spanish. Still, it was a neat thing to see considering they were only discovered last year.

There were 19 of these urns filled with coins.

These coins are 1,700 years old!!

What they look like all polished up.

From there, we just wandered around. We'll be back in Seville in a couple of weeks when Ruth's cousin Helen and her husband Tony are visiting. Still lots to see and we certainly don't mind returning.

Back at the motorhome for a rest. Dave and Bonnie met us at a tapas restaurant at 7:00pm for a little birthday celebration. First time having tapas in Spain! Ruth and I shared three dishes, and Dave and Bonnie shared three dishes.

Oxtail.

We had stuffed mushrooms, oxtail, and stuffed pepper. Fairly large portions, and we were full. The bill for the four of us was €30 ($43.50 CAD, $33 USD) and that included three beers and a glass of wine. Dave and Bonnie's treat...thanks guys!

And then it was off to the Flamenco dance. You can't go to Seville without seeing a professional performance. There are about ten places that do daily shows, but there's a lot of variety. Some are dinner and show, some are large venues, and some are small. We chose the smaller venu at La Casa del Flamenco for the 8:30pm show.

The place only seats about 50 people, and there were 28 at our show. Almost felt like a private performance!

Four people in the show...the guitarist, a male singer, a female dancer, and a male dancer.

The guitarist didn't stop for the whole hour. He was really good. And with no sheet music. Amazing. The whole show is so intense. It's a very emotional form of dance.

There's no photography of any kind allowed during the show. At the end, they do a quick one minute long thing where you can use a camera, so I videoed it for you. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as the show itself, but you get the idea...


Really good birthday for me, and another great day overall.

Today, we're heading for Portugal. Not sure that we'll do it all in one day, so we'll see how it goes. 

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Women's Cozy boots...half price!


And in Canada...




22 comments:

  1. This is the exact same show we saw in October, and the same performers, other than the male dancer. We loved, loved, loved it. So glad you had an oppurtunity to experience it as well!

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    1. Out of all the different venues for seeing a Flamenco Dance show, it is funny that we picked the same one that you went to. They did a excellent job and it was really nice to be with such a small group to be watching it. It seemed very private which we preferred over some of these big venues of 200 people or more.

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  2. I went to see professional Flamenco dancers in Ottawa which was very good but very repetitive!

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    1. I think if we were to have seem more than three dances we may have thought the same. We enjoyed the show though and Kevin was totally in awe with the guitarist who never stopped playing for the whole hour.

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  3. What a great way to spend your birthday, the show looks awesome.

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    1. Definitely a different way to spend a birthday. Kevin enjoyed his day.

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  4. A great day for you guys! The tapas look yummy.

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    1. It was a wonderful day! We totally forgot to take a picture of the other two tapas that we had. We will have to remember next time.

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  5. The coins are amazing. What an awesome find! I read that they think they were to pay Roman taxes, but you have to wonder what happened for them all to still be sitting there untouched back then. I really enjoy your traveling history lessons. Safe travels today.

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    1. Yes, that as well or to pay the soldiers! Definitely makes you wonder then what happened that they never used the coins to pay either of those and that they just sat their forgotten about. Maybe they were stolen and hidden and the person who hid them died without telling anyone! We'll probably never know the real story.

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  6. Sounds like you had a great day exploring and an enjoyable birthday dinner and show. Looking forward to what awaits in Portugal!

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    1. Kevin couldn't have asked for a better birthday, it was a great day!

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  7. Cool coins! Things haven't changed much. The food looks so delicious!

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    1. Kevin loves stories like that! It really makes you wonder what other hidden treasures are there that still haven't been discovered.

      The food was delicious, too bad we forgot to take pictures of the other two tapas we had.

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  8. Happy Birthday! I think you should've been presented with one or two of those old coins as a birthday present, don't you? :-) Or, maybe even one urn-full. No, that would be piggish. Wow, what a find, eh? Seville sounds like a wonderful place to visit.

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    1. He wouldn't want to seem greedy, he would have been happy with just one of those coins! ;-) He was actually just happy to see them and find out the story behind them.

      Seville was fantastic, so much so that we will be back in a few weeks time to see some more of it.

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  9. So happy we were able to share Kevin's birthday celebration. The flamenco show was lots of fun! Thanks for organizing the show for us, Kevin. WE both said afterwards how much we had enjoyed it. Was really great to have time with you two after so many years. Here's hoping we'll be able to connect again somewhere in Portugal! Hugs, B&D

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    1. Thank you for joining us for the evening and treating us to the tapas. We had a great evening and it was lovely to celebrate Kevin's birthday with some friends. We really hope to meet up with you in Portugal as well. Plus we totally forgot to get a picture of you too, so we need to do that! :-)

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  10. The folks that found the coins must have been really happy:)

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    1. I am sure that they were very happy discovering them but not sure they would have gotten anything from the coins other than the recognition of finding them. We could be wrong though!

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