We head down to the Plaza Larga, a small local square where all the fresh food markets are busy trading, before heading through the winding streets to Plaza del Salvador, a pretty square in front of a church bathed in morning sun. We head back up along San Nicolas and take in one more view of the Alhambra before heading back to the hotel for check out.
We head to the bus station by cab and catch the bus to Seville. It's a 3 hour journey through the Andalusia countryside. It's full of quite stunning landscapes for most of the way. However the first 5-10km of the trip getting out of town, and the last 10-15 getting to seville, passes through what I regard as 'the nothing' part of the city. You know that area of a city where there's no distinguishable character or soul. It's full of old car yards, situated next to new car yards, followed by a service station then an abandoned or derelict warehouse building, followed by another smash repair place and a take away joint wedge between it and another warehouse building. It's a bit like parramatta road I guess. There's stuff there but really there's nothing. Every city seems to have it, and it's quite a 20th century thing, a result of urban sprawl and the motor car.
Arriving in the heart of Seville however and it immediately strikes me as a pretty place. We walk from the bus station to our hotel, only 10 minutes but it's 10 minutes of annoyance as my ailing luggage makes a horribly loud ruckus on the undulating pavement. People turn there heads at every shop we pass with looks of disdain. Hang in there little bag.
We arrive at our hotel and head out for an afternoon of exploring. We're staying in the Centro historic area of Santa Cruz and it's a short walk to the city's heart, the Cathedral. First though we stop for lunch at a tapas bar where we order a salad for sim and I get some chorizo and a skewer of grilled monkfish and prawns.
After lunch we head to the cathedral. We decide to go in knowing it will cost us yet again for the privilege. Another €9 to get in and see the inside. Sim's fuming. She might actually write a letter to a cardinal or archbishop. We've probably spent well over €100 between us going into churches.
Nonetheless, we enter and it's worth it. This is the 3rd largest cathedral behind St Peters in Rome and St Pauls in London. Again though, it's a rather dark and somber experience inside, much different to yesterday's church in Granada. There's so many rooms and little chapels in this cathedral. Little repositories of religious paintings, garments, chalices and other paraphernalia. Honestly the Catholic Church are the Liberace's of the religious world, so much gold and silver everywhere.
We head up the bell tower, it's the only remaining structure from the old mosque that existed here prior to the cathedrals construction in the 15th century. It's an interesting tower, made up of 34 steep ramps that take you to the top. Apparently they used to take horses up these narrow ramps, lazy buggers. The view from the top is great, you can see all over Seville, which isn't a huge city but it's big enough. The lush garden oasis of the nearby alcazar stands out with the tall palm trees popping up in the skyline. In the distance you can see all the different bridges along the river, including another Santiago Calatrava bridge.
It's nearing 4pm and sim and I discuss whether the bells ring or not, thinking that it might be too loud for people up here. Sure enough they ring. It scares the crap out of a few unsuspecting tourists. Quite funny.
We head back down into the cathedral and explore some more. There's a lot of interesting detail in the ceiling, it's a shame it's 40-50m above our heads. Luckily they have a magnifying mirror here which allows you to see the detail above in a small part of the cathedral. Nice little modern inclusion.
Exiting the cathedral we head into a large courtyard filled with neatly arranged orange trees. This too was a remnant from the old mosque. Interestingly my two favourite parts of this cathedral are the ones with Islamic origins.
We stroll the streets of Seville. It really is a delightful streetscape. It's very hot, mid 30 temperatures, but the shade cloth canopies that line the various streets above, as well as all the watery mist being sprayed from umbrellas over outdoor dining tables in the bars that line the streets, helps cool things down.
We window shop for a bit on our way to check out the bullring, before realising we're heading in the complete wrong direction to the bullring and so we check out the relatively new Parasol structure instead. It's a laminated timber megastructure of cross beams in an organic sculptural form that really, to be quite frank seems a waste of money! It's very disappointing as a public space. All the stairs and access points up to the plaza podium level are barricaded off and it takes us an eternity to figure out how you actually get in to go up to the rooftop of this thing. Turns out you have to go down a level to go up. Who would have thought? Arriving at the roof level and it things don't improve. There's a quite tacky serpentine access path that is surely only ever used by tourists and then it leads to nowhere. The views are the best part but really they could've been achieved by a much simpler structure. The parasol is not even an effective shade structure and worse it's open webbing would surely offer no rain cover at all. This may sound harsh but it's like someone built some uni students grad project.
We make our way down and then wander more of the Sevilla streets. It really has a maze like quality to it, somewhat disorienting like Venice but unlike Venice you can get back to where you wanted to go!
We head back to the hotel for a swim. It's now well after 6pm and the rooftop pool is as crowded as a San Sebastián beach. We luckily score two sun lounges as an old Italian man offers us two he was attempting to hold for his late running wife. (No she's not dead and she wasn't a runner...she just wasn't on time)
It's an awesome view across the city roof tops and after a couple of rather large glasses of Hendricks and Tonics we are well on our way.
It's now 9pm and the sun shows no sign of leaving but after a good few hours we decide we should.
We head down for a shower. We're both pretty messy after the g&ts but manage to make it out into town.
We head back up to the area we were in earlier today to a bar suggested by our friend Felipe el Rinconcillo. We trust him, as he speaks Spanish. It's also the oldest tapas bar in Spain dating back to 1670. Such a cool place. I order a plate of Iberian jamon for myself as well as some espinacas con garbanzos. Sim orders an omelette with mushrooms. It's all really tasty. We have a beer and sangria before a few wines. It's a popular place and it's such a great atmosphere. One of the cool things is they write down everyone's tab of what they've ordered in chalk on the bar. So old school. Great vibe here. Everyone's standing at the bar and in the window bays eating their tapas and drinking. It's nice because it feels like the real Spain, as in that this has been the way things have happened for the last few centuries.
We ask for the bill and the barstaff tallys it up in chalk showing his working calculations on the timber bartop. So old fashioned. It's at this point where I become that wanker tourist and say, "can I put that on card". Hahaha.
A sign of the times they accept the card.
We stroll back towards our hotel but stop for another wine and sangria at another crowded bar. This is our first real taste of the late night culture in Spain, prior to Andalusia most things seemed to die down prior to 11.
We sit at the bar and I watch the bullfight that's on the television in the bar. Many locals are watching quite intently. I still don't really get this. I get that it's a tradition and a cultural performance more so than a sport, but it does seem rather pointless to kill the bull at the end. Sim can't watch and actually gets quite upset that it's on.
On that note we head home after a big day in beautiful Seville.
mat + sim
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