34) Alcázar - interior decoration display home

Just popped into our local neighbourhood for lunch.

     Sue and I can't get over what surrounds us while we lunch.

Now for the interior decorating tour of Alcázar.

                    ALCÁZAR 

"If heaven really does exist, then let's hope it looks a little bit like the inside of Seville's Alcázar. Built primarily in the 1300s during the so-called 'dark ages' in Europe, the architecture is anything but dark. Indeed, compared to our modern-day shopping malls and throw-away apartment blocks, it could be argued that the Alcázar marked one of history's architectural high points. Unesco agreed, making it a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Originally founded as a fort for the Cordoban governors of Seville in 913, the Alcázar has been expanded or reconstructed many times in its 11 centuries of existence. In the 11th century Seville’s prosperous Muslim taifa (small kingdom) rulers developed the original fort by building a palace called Al-Muwarak (the Blessed) in what’s now the western part of the Alcázar. The 12th-century Almohad rulers added another palace east of this, around what’s now the Patio del Crucero. Christian Fernando III moved into the Alcázar when he captured Seville in 1248, and several later Christian monarchs used it as their main residence. Fernando’s son Alfonso X replaced much of the Almohad palace with a Gothic one. Between 1364 and 1366 Pedro I created the Alcázar’s crown jewel, the sumptuous Mudéjar Palacio de Don Pedro."

lonelyplanet.com

Read more: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/spain/seville/sights/castles-palaces-mansions/alcazar#ixzz3PeAw4XXw

We're playing "spot the Magen David"! But this is Mudéjar style - a fusion of Islamic and Christian traditions.

       Triana Ceramics

                     Hatted royalty

     So many delightful garden rooms to choose from.

          The bathrooms.

      I can smell the ripening oranges.