SEVILLE, SPAIN
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The Cathedral Bell Tower. This is what we climbed up by mistake. Mike had to pull me up that last few flights![/caption]
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The Sevilla Bull Ring. The season is over — not that we would go. Great Museum.[/caption]
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Beautiful 15th Century Cathedral of Seville built on the site of a 12th Century Mosque of which parts are still there. Amazing!!!. Spent hours there.[/caption]
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Its hard to capture the beauty of this Cathedral but here is a portion.[/caption]
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Procession on All Saints Day for Our Lady of the Rosary in Seville[/caption]
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Procession carrying the statue of Our Lady[/caption]
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Famous Matador outside the Bullring[/caption]
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Freshly cooked Paella in Seville. Delish![/caption]
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Great Flamenco show. Reminded me of myself years ago!!! ha![/caption]
Our journey from Galė, to Albufeira ( taxi) to catch the bus to Seville went well even though it was at 6.30am . This was the earliest we have been up in the morning and out since those working days!!, strange thing we saw the resemblance of a squatter camp by the bus terminal, the bus to Seville was a great ride 3.5 hours, when we got to the information at Seville bus terminal, they told us we could walk to the hotel in 10 min.
What a great hotel, Trish booked it on last min .com ,100 euro a night,right in the middle of old town Seville, HOTEL BĖCQUER, definitely would recommend it.
We arrived on the Friday afternoon, just at siesta time , ( I am not too sure about this siesta time ,I think most of them spend it in the bars because they sure are full !!), all the shops where shut , this was from Like 11 am till 5 pm , so we spent the afternoon at the cathedral, quite spectacular, with parts of the past original mosque site seen ,and all the different stone and mosaic patterns , historically one could spend hours talking about it but hey google it , I don’t need to write it . They say it is the biggest cathedral in the world, we spent 3 hours looking around , and realized we had not been to the bell tower, which is quite a significant bell tower, what we didn’t know when we entered it was we were walking to the top, 36 sloped sides , no steps which made it quite easy to climb, I had to pull Trish up the last few levels, this is the highest point of Seville, and once again historically , nothing can be built in the city higher than the steeple, a bit like the Calgary tower!!!
We then found out it was a religious holiday on the Saturday, all saints day and with Sunday being a religious day it meant we where going to get in and out of Seville without any shopping, what a result for me!!
The Saturday morning we came out of the hotel to a massive procession of people , I thought it was a protest rally at first and then saw this massive statue of Our Lady being carried by 30 of the hugest spaniards you have seen, this statue and structure was so big the procession had to stop every 20 meters for a rest.
We spent the next day going to the bull ring museum and many of the other historical churches and monuments scattered all over this city, and when the Tapas bars didn’t smell fishy, we generally fed on Tapas.
A sad thing we did notice was the site of the Expo 92 that was built in the modern Seville has not been maintained and is not worth a visit.
The final day we spent quite relaxed ( because the shops were shut ) visiting the Plaza de Espaina which was quite interesting depicting a tiled mural of each of the Spanish provinces , and showing what they produce and how they fit in to the country, the river side RIO GUADALQUIVIR, and tapas bars where quite disappointing when you look at the locations and ambiance they are set in , this could have been developed into a much more enticing area for visitors to this amazing city.
Our final night we spent at a Flamenco show , what an experience that was , I don’ think Trish or I were prepared for the Spanish male singer being so prominent in the actual show , and being so loud , but the Flamenco dancer was so dominant and classy , nothing distracted from her , quite the occasion !!
What a great city to visit , 3 days was sufficient and tomorrow we are off to Granada
