Sevilla, Spain

Two weekends ago, Ross and I took an impromptu trip to the famous, Spanish city of Sevilla. Sevilla is located in southern Spain, a 6 hour bus ride from Madrid, in the region of Andalucia. It is known for being home to the birthplace of Flamenco music and dance, due to its historic gypsie population, as well as the third largest gothic cathedral in the world and tapas at every turn. 

We left on a night bus from Madrid last Thursday night at 1 AM, scheduled to arrive in Sevilla at 7:30. The bus ride was nice, but we did not get as much sleep as we had planned and were super tired upon arriving in Sevilla. We made a pit stop  half-way from Madrid and as I was inside using the bathroom (maybe around 4AM) the bus pulled away to refuel. So, as you can expect, I walked out of the rest-stop with a few other people, all in a panic looking for the stupid bus! Fortunately, someone had been through this before and remembered that the bus refuels and then returns for the people who left. Whew! Crisis averted! 

First, we went to our hostel, The Traveler's Inn, to store our bags and inquire about checking in early for a little shut-eye before beginning our day. They took the bags, but could not offer us a room until midday since the place was full. Therefore, we were forced out into Sevilla bright and early to explore and to get our bearings. We stopped for some coffee and pastries near the hostel, then navigated through the windy, cobblestone streets to the historical center with the cathedral and other attractions. We actually ran into some fellow SLU students who had been on our bus, they were burning time to catch another bus to Morocco for a weekend in the desert!  Instead of going in the attractions, we decided just to tour around and save the admissions for the next two days. However, our next stop, the Torre de Oro, (the golden tower) was open and worth entering. It was an old lighthouse situated on the river, which now houses a maritime museum and can be climbed up for views of the city. For the record, Christopher Columbus is from Sevilla and there is much dedicated to him, his crews and the discovery of the Americas. We opted to take a bus tour of the city afterwards, since we were tired and it seemed like a great way to feel out the town without having to walk. It was a hop-on-hop-off tour, though we never really hopped off!!  It toured us around, highlighting the major sights and areas. We returned to our hostel for a much needed siesta and then after a few hours, went back out for an early tapas dinner.  Afterwards we visited the beautiful Plaza de España. This huge building and extravagant plaza was constructed for an international exhibition in Sevilla, but now attracts visitors for the architecture and beauty. We left there, passing through the old Tobacco factory, which once processed all the tobacco entering into Spain from the New World, but is now home to the University of Seville.  Later we stublmed across a tapas and wine bar called Vinela, which came to be one of our favorite stops in Seville.  They had fantastic Rioja, red wine and really good breaded shrimp tapas.  

Cathedral of Sevilla

Torre de Oro

Plaza de España

On Saturday, we got moving early, took advantage of the free breakfast at the hostel and went straight to the cathedral to begin seeing the sights that we had just glanced at the day before. Bathe cathedral was incredible, we took a look at all the small chapels, the impressive treasure room, loaded with gold and jewels, as well as the tomb of Columbus, while trying to eavesdrop on some Spanish tour guides to pick up a little information. The place was swarming with Costa cruise ship passengers (seriously, the cruises haunt me!). We ended the tour of the cathedral by climbing the tall bell tower for unmatched views of the city. It required walking 35 ramps and then 17 steps, but was really cool at the top and worth the workout.  Next, we stopped for a small lunch of some tapas and beer, then proceeded to the Royal Alcazar. This structure was once a Moorish fort, but was later inhabited by the Spanish royal family. It was rather empty, but boasted impressive architecture, mosaics and gardens. After burning some time there, we moved on to the Plaza de Toros of Seville, the bullring, which my mom told me to check out (she did some Seville research for me).  The tour of the ring was interesting, we got to see the hidden areas of the ring, where the bulls enter, where the royal family sits and where the matadors pray before each fight, as well as  a couple museum exhibits of bullfighting paraphernalia and art.  My sociology teacher had informed me that an interesting area, called Tirana, was situated just across the river in Sevilla, this place was once home to the city's gypsy population and therefore became the birthplace of Flamenco music and culture. We walked into Tirana just for a drink and some sightseeing, but walked back to the city center after nabbing a couple nice Cruzcampo beer glasses from the unfriendly bar. It has become a game to collect as many of these unique glasses from all around Europe as possible. Dan is undoubtedly winning, since he has no shame or fear of embarrassment, but I am not that talented of a clepto (now, hotel toiletries on the other hand, that's my expertise!) As it turns out, upon returning to Madrid, only one of our two glasses was even printed with the beer logo... I am fairly certain the good one is mine. Haha!  After Tirana and making a run for it with out hot glasses, we walked back along the river to our standby, Vinela, for some more wine and shrimp.  There, we decided to look into changing our return bus ticket for the following day, Sunday.  We had planned to take the same 1 AM bus home from Sevilla, but at that point felt like we had seem most all of the city and could afford leaving earlier in order to get back to Madrid as a more reasonable time.    Luckily, the lady at the bus station was super-friendly and helped us choose a new departure time of 5 PM with nothing more than a 1 euro fee to change.  Afterwards, we regrouped again at the hostel and headed out for a visit to the world largest wooden structure for the evening, Metropol Parasol.  This place was designed by a German engineer and takes up most of the plaza that it sits in.  It looks like six large mushrooms, and houses shopping, restaurants, a pedestrian plaza and a observation deck on the top.  There was some sort of festival going on, with live music and tons of people.  For just 1.30 euro we took an elevator to the top of the mushrooms for a scenic views over Seville, including the Cathedral and other buildings lit up at night.  It was awesome!  Before leaving, we stopped into the tapas bar up there, Gastrosol, for a couple beers and croquettas tapas as a snack, since we intended to find something good for dinner later.  We left Plaza de la Emancipación and headed for Plaza Neuva, an areas bustling with bars and restaurants.  After walking around for some time, we settled on Ginos, a nice italian place, since we were tapas-ed out and ready for a big plate of pasta.  I got a really great pesto with green noodles and we washed it down with three glasses of red vino!  Before going to sleep in the hostel, I had an interesting conversation with a couple Australian girls staying in our room.  We were talking about the differences between American English and Australian English -- they say things like sunnies (sunglasses), rubbish (trash) and thongs (flip flops), that we just don't say!  Too funny!  

Tomb of Christopher Columbus

View of Sevilla from the Cathedral Tower

Royal Alcazar

Plaza de Toros de Sevilla

Metropol Parasol

Ross and I atop Metropol Parasol

Sunday was spent simply by checking out the few places that we had missed in Sevilla.  We headed west from our hostel, after eating breakfast, to an area called Macarena.  Despite ho badly I was actually looking forward to doing the Macarena there, I never heard the song nor had the chance. Bummer!  There is a an awesome church there devoted to the Virgin Mary and it has an extravagant altar with a larger than life size Mary mannequin/statue/doll thing set into the ornate golden facade.  Even though mass was about to start, we were able to walk behind the altar in a line of tourists to enter the chamber where the Mary stands and view her from behind, while looking out over the assembling congregation.  It was pretty cool!!  They had creepy mirrors set up, so that you could see around her head and get a look at her face from the back.  We left there, walked back to the river, through a couple interesting plazas and just happened to stumble upon an awesome place for lunch.  Going along with the tapas theme, this place specialized in pinchos, which are a form of tapas, where some sort of meat, cheese, etc. is prepared and served stop a slice of french bread.  The place was self-serve, so we could fill up a plate with various pinchos and then get charged based upon how many toothpicks we had in the end. Very cool and fun idea!  We ended up walking back though the town center and the cathedral to a small plaza near our hostel, which was loaded with people hanging out drinking beer on the nice Sunday afternoon.  So, we grabbed a beer and spent some time there before collecting our bags and hitting the long road back to Madrid!  

Virgin Mary of Macarena 

For such an unexpected and quick trip, Sevilla turned out to be a travel great destination and a whole lot of fun!!