Seville: Friday 23rd February 2018

Today is our last full day in Seville - in the morning we walked around the Triana area.  Formerly known as Seville’s gypsy neighbourhood it is especially famous for its vivid flamenco culture and its tile workshops and potteries, an industry that dates back to  Roman times.

 

Building in Triana area

One of the patios in Triana

Colourful houses in Triana

The area felt very different to the other parts of Seville that we have been to and we enjoyed wandering around taking in the views.

 

 

 After lunch we walked back to the Plaza de Espana so that we could have a closer look, and we also had a wander through the Maria Luisa Park.

 

Panorama of Plaza de Espana

 

 

We have done a lot of walking today - according to my fitbit we have walked over 20,000 steps which is over 9 miles!  Peter is saying it feels like it!!

We have had tapas pretty much everyday for either lunch or dinner (and sometimes for both!) so we decided to go to TripAdvisor's number one restaurant in Seville....which is a Lebanese restaurant!  Peter and I shared a chicken & rice dish and a lamb shish type dish and it was delicious - probably our best meal on our trip!

Not tapas for a change!

We have really enjoyed our visit to Seville - it is a really beautiful City which is easy to navigate round, and it has a lovely atmosphere.

Adios....until our next holiday!

Seville: Thursday 22nd February 2018

This morning we headed off to visit the Cathedral but when we arrived there were hordes of tourist groups going in so we decided to come back later and went off to the Hospital de los Venerables, a baroque 17th-century former hospice for ageing priests.  Although Peter and I aren't in to art there were some lovely 17th-century paintings on view but the main reason we went was to see the ornately decorated chapel.

Our next stop was the Palacio de las Duenas,  a palace built in the late 15th century in the Renaissance style with Gothic and Moorish influences.  We really enjoyed our visit here as the palace was set out as a home when the last owner lived there so you got a feel of the place, and it had lovely gardens.

 

 

 

We stopped off for some lunch and started walking back towards the Cathedral which was in another part of town.  We decided to go via some of the shopping streets to have a look round but unfortunately we were just hitting Siesta time and they were literally closing the doors as we walked down the street!

 

On our way to the Cathedral

 

We had a look round the Cathedral, which is HUGE, but I found it a bit boring to be honest - I think we had been spoilt with the Baroque churches we have seen.  The best part of the Cathedral was walking up the tower - I had read that it was ramps rather than stairs so we thought it can't be that difficult but believe me it was - we had to keep stopping to 'admire the view' from the windows on the way up but we were really just having a rest!  However, it was all worth it and the views were amazing.

 

Amazing views from the top of the Cathedral tower



The bells went off when we were up there and it was so loud - someone even screamed!  Luckily it was only 3pm so we only had to listen to 3 bongs.

 

Some of the bells in the tower

View from the bottom of the tower

The weather was so nice when we got back to our apartment we sat out on the terrace for a couple of hours - as long as you were sat in the sun it was warm (bit chilly in the shade!).

Seville: Wednesday 21st February 2018

Today we had booked tickets to see the Real Alcazar, a Unesco-listed palace in Seville which is one of the main highlights of the city. It was very interesting, and we took a couple of hours looking around the palace, as well as the extensive gardens.

 

 

Whilst looking around the gardens we came across a camera crew filming for a TV programme so we sat on a wall with the other tourists to watch them filming.

 

Filming at the Alcazar

 

We then went to view the El Salvador Church which is the 2nd largest church in Seville (after the Cathedral) and famous for its elaborate, baroque interior.

 

After lunch (tapas of course!) we did another free walking tour, this time of the Santa Cruz area, which is a former Jewish area of Seville.  We were the only English speakers in the tour group so we had a guide to ourselves - he was a little under-confident with his English speaking but once we got walking and he started to feel comfortable he was a lot better, but did keep pronouncing his J as Y so kept referring it as the Yewish Quarter!  It was a very interesting walk and he took us to places we hadn't been before in the area. 

In the evening we went to an Italian restaurant to take a break from all the tapas we have been eating!

Seville: Tuesday 20th February 2018

To get a feel for the city on our first full day in Seville we decided to do a free walking tour - we started off in the beautiful Plaza de España located in the middle of Maria Luisa Park.

Plaza de Espana

There was a large group waiting for the tour, but we were split in to English and Spanish speaking groups so there was only 6 of us in total with our guide Miguel which was good as we could easily ask questions.  Over the next two hours we walked past many of the main sites, including the University, the Cathedral and up to the Metropol Parasol.

 

 

The Cathedral

Under the Metropol Parasol

View from the Metropol Parasol



In the afternoon we visited the Casa de Pilates, a palace in Seville. It was very pretty, with a courtyard in the middle and surrounded by gardens. 

Casa de Pilates

 





Seville: Monday 19th February 2018

This morning we woke up to a lovely sunrise - it was our last morning in Cordoba before we headed off to Seville. 

 

Sunrise view from our apartment in Cordoba

 The train journey only took 45 mins and we were in Seville by early afternoon. Our apartment in Seville is right in the centre, very close to the Cathedral, and has a lovely terrace which is nearly as big as the actual apartment!  The weather is so warm (sorry to rub it in!) that after going to the shop to get some groceries we spent a couple of hours relaxing on the terrace.

 

Our terrace - with the Cathedral in the background

Relaxing on the terrace

This evening we went out on a tapas tour! There was a small group of 7 people - a couple from Yorkshire, a couple from Washington DC and a lady from California plus our very animated Spanish guide Lydia.  Our first stop was at the oldest tapas bar in Seville that had been around for 300 years and had been in the same family for the last 200! We tried sweet red Vermouth which was 15% alcohol - I hadn't had much to eat that day and I already felt it going to be head after a couple of sips but they soon brought out some tapas - croquettes and Iberian Ham which soaked up the alcohol!



Our first stop - a very traditional bar

Iberian Ham, with our last dregs of Vermouth!

Our next stop was a typical 'hole in the wall' bar which was so busy!  It was tiny and everyone was pushing and shoving to get to the bar - wherever you stood you were in the way.  We said we would never have thought to stop here if we had not been on the tour and we tasted Manchego sheeps cheese and some delicious pork, all washed down with Orange wine.

 



Hole in the wall bar - barman pouring our orange wine

We then went on to another crowded bar where we tasted some sherry and had more tapas, and then ended up at a local restaurant where we sat down and shared a number of delicious tapas.  It was an enjoyable evening and everyone got on well - it should have only been 3 hours long but we didn't finish until 11.30pm so we over ran by 90 mins as we were having a good time.

Cordoba: Sunday 18th February 2018

This morning we were out the door by 9:30am so that we could beat the day-trippers before they come in to town - even though it is not peak season Cordoba gets very busy with people coming in from Seville and Malaga for the day. We followed a walking tour that I had in my guide book which took us through the narrow streets.

Our next port of call was on the outskirts of the town which took us out of the main tourist area and in to the area where people live - we stopped off at a café on the way which was full of locals, and where nobody spoke any English!  Bearing in mind our Spanish is limited to saying hello, thank you and counting up to 4 I think we did pretty well - the poor waiter was gabbling way in Spanish at us and we just sat there with blank expressions - in the end he gave up and we managed to order two coffees and some churros and chocolate to share - very tasty!

Breakfast to share!

Hmmm yum!

With our tums full we moved on to Palacio de Viana, a Renaissance palace with 12 beautiful, plant-filled patios.  As they only had tours of the palace in Spanish we decided to just look round the patios - even at this time of the year they were very pretty.

 

We then walked back in to the main part of town and we were going to look around the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos (which is like a castle/palace from the medieval ages) but when we got there the queues were huge so we decided to go for a wander through the old town instead.  We are glad we did as we came across a carnival procession so we stopped to watch that - it had a children's theme with lots of clowns and superheros and it was good to watch and take in the atmosphere of everyone enjoying the parade.

 

 

 

We then went back to our apartment for a siesta (well we are in Spain!). 

The owner of the apartment had recommended that we go for a walk over the other side of the river at dusk to see the town all lit up - it was a nice walk and the views were lovely.

In the evening we went to another tapas restaurant close to our apartment that I had seen on Trip Advisor. We chose their set tapas menu so that we could try something a bit different - we had the Salmorejo which is a traditional dish in Cordoba - it is a cold, creamy tomato soup with ham and egg on top - potato omelette, aubergines with a sweet sauce, meatballs in almond and saffron sauce, deep fried cod, pork stew and for dessert a biscuit and chocolate cake. We were very full at the end of the meal but it was all very nice and there wasn't anything we didn't like!

Salmorejo soup

Deep fried cod and fried aubergine in a sweet sauce

We have really enjoyed our time in Cordoba and glad we stayed a couple of nights to fully appreciate the town - we are off to Seville tomorrow!

Cordoba - Saturday 17th February 2018

We were up bright and early this morning (4am - still the middle of the night!) to catch our early morning flight to Seville in Spain.  We landed in a very foggy Seville to catch a bus, then a train, and then a taxi to get to our apartment in the town of Cordoba (quite literally planes, trains and automobiles...).

Cordoba is a thousand year old town in the Andalusia region of Spain that has UNESCO status. It has a lovely old quarter with a network of alleys, Squares and white washed houses around the Mezquita, a Mosque-cathedral which Cordoba is famous for.

When we arrived we dropped off our bags and had a walk around the town before we stopped for lunch at a traditional tavern.

 

One of the narrow streets

In the afternoon we visited the Mezquita which was both huge and stunning!



Outside of the Mezquita

The original mosque was built on the site in the 8th Century and when Cordoba returned to Christian rule in 1236 it was changed to a mosque-cathedral.

 

 



I have not been feeling well on and off for the last few days and it seemed to really hit me today - after a bit of a sleep we then went out to a local tapas bar that the owner of our apartment recommended which was close by - it wasn't anything fancy but was filled with locals and had a lovely atmosphere - we ordered some patatas bravas, fried cod and some hard boiled eggs filled with tuna and it was all very nice - and along with our drinks only cost 18 Euro too!