Home in Granada for a couple of days and back on the
road. The month was suddenly a very busy
one and the time until we left for Uruguay seemed very short. We didn’t have time to do all the things we
wanted to do in Andalucia let alone in Spain.
At times we wondered if we were doing the right thing by traveling to
Uruguay in November but we decided to stick to the plan.
Early on a rainy Tuesday morning, with nothing more than we
could fit in our backpacks we started the 30 minute walk to the train station
from our house in the Sacramonte. We
arrived in plenty of time for the 8 o’clock train to Sevilla. The train, on a regular economy class ticket was
surprisingly comfortable with plenty of legroom and space for carry-on luggage.
The train did stop several times but deposited us in Sevilla
between 11:00 and 11:30. The tickets
cost us about 28 euros each (the autobus cost about 18 euro but took more than
an hour longer), purchased at the station that morning, and it proved to be a
relaxing, quiet and roomy experience.
Hungry by the time we arrived we gave in to Mike’s craving for a “real”
hamburger and stopped at the McDonalds for lunch.
Marilyn had found a quaint little hotel called the Hotel Murillo ideally located in the old Jewish quarter of Sevilla known as Santa Cruz which turned out to be only a 20 minute walk from the
train station. They allowed us to check
in early and we immediately headed out to explore the city.
First stop, of course, was the Casa Placido Bar for a beer
for Mike and a glass of wine for Marilyn as we broke out the map to plan the
best route to take that afternoon.
First
stop, the Plaza de Espana.
When we
arrived we were simply amazed at the size of this incredible place and snapped photo
after photo.
It took us nearly an hour
and a half to wander through the plaza and the huge Parque de Maria Luisa attached
to it and by no means did we explore all of it.
We had one or one and a half days in Sevilla at most so did not take the
amount of time to explore that we would have liked to.
Then, it was down to the Guadalquiver river to see what
historically, has been Spain’s most commercially important river.
A few hundred years ago this river was
navigable all the way to Sevilla making the city the country’s primary seaport
on the Atlantic Ocean even though it was miles inland. Later, when the river silted up the Spanish
commerce and Armada moved their operations to Cadiz on the coast.
Walking along the river we visited the Torre del Oro and the
nautical museum and a beautiful building we can not remember the name of, with its’ statues of famous
Sevillanos and intricate façade.
Even
though this October day started out rainy it was 32 degrees Centigrade by
mid-afternoon in Sevilla. It seems like
it is always hotter in Sevilla than anywhere else in Spain. After wandering the city for four hours in
the heat and before we tackled the cathedral we decided to stop for a glass of
wine at a marvelous little place called Bodegon Torre del Oro (what else?) on
one of Sevilla’s small streets.
We
enjoyed talking to the gregarious waiter as we watched other tourist pass by in
horse drawn carts. The wine was really,
really good and re-confirmed our belief that Spanish wines are some of the best
in the world.
Dodging the horse carriages and crossing a major bus and
inter-city train stop we found ourselves at the entrance of Sevilla’s very
baroque cathedral.
It was remarkably
beautiful, as cathedrals tend to be but we found the stained glass and worked
stone to be particularly special here.
Sevilla’s
cathedral claims to possess the mausoleum of Christopher Columbus
(a common
claim around Andalucia) and features the Giralda Tower which is reached by
climbing up 44 flights of stairs.
Taking
pictures all the way of course, especially the magnificent views of the city
available from the top.
Leaving the cathedral we were hungry and decided, as is our
newfound habit, to stop at a street-side café, Gusto Ristobar for some
nourishment, people watching and of course, Spanish refreshment.
Our next stop, the Alcazaba turned out to be
closed which was disappointing
We enjoyed wandering the narrow streets of the Santa Cruz neighborhood on the way back to our hotel for a late afternoon
siesta.
Waking refreshed we searched the
barrio for a really nice restaurant for tapas and were a little disappointed in
what we could find. Being a little tired
we stopped at an inoffensive little place and after having a couple of
inoffensive tapas we decided to retire for the evening.
The next morning brought the threat of rain so, after a late
morning coffee and sweet, we packed up, checked out and walked back to the
train station to catch the train to Cordoba, knowing that we would need to come back to Sevilla again.
We just missed the regular train and didn’t want to take the
SuperExpress that left in 15 minutes which was twice the cost so we had an hour
to kill before our train. The trip to
Cordoba took only 45 minutes and we arrived in a pouring rain.
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