Seville, Spain

Thursday

Luckily our hotel was close to the train station, so we checked in there and then set off to the Santa Cruz region in the heart of Seville’s old town. We followed our noses and ears through a maze of tiny alleyways until we found a little back street not far from the cathedral that was packed with restaurants and tapas bars. The one we chose was fantastic. We love tapas – not only the delicious food, but the ability to order 6-7 different things from a menu is perfect for people as gastronomically indecisive as we can be! We were introduced to possibly the most delicious thing in the world – “pinchito de pollo”, which are perfectly cooked tender marinated chicken pieces on skewers. They were so good we went back the following night for some more!

After dinner we wandered to the main square surrounding the cathedral. The magnificent cathedral and its bell tower (La Giralda) were all lit up at night and looked so pretty. Just across the square from the cathedral is the fortress wall of the Alcazares, part of which was also lit up. We were both instantly fans of Seville!

Friday

There were a lot of things we wanted to see in Seville and, with only two days there, we had to get cracking early (well, relatively early) to make sure we fitted it all in. Tim had taken note of some of the attractions from the guidebook – and while we had decided that we never wanted to visit another church or cathedral again following our tour of Italy in July, the guidebook twisted our arm into visiting the Seville cathedral. It opened at 11am, so after wandering back into the Santa Cruz region and getting some breakfast, we had a bit of time to fill in.

We decided to check out the Plaza Santa Cruz, which turned out to be hidden in the middle of a labyrinth of streets. We must have circled it from different angles several times before we finally found it and pounced. After all the effort it is was a bit of anti-climax, but the plaza was still very pretty and very quiet – because no tourists could find it!

The area around the cathedral gates at 11am was a bit like feeding time at the zoo. Most Europeans don’t understand (correction: don’t give a crap about) the concept of a queue and just barge on in there with elbows flying. So we raised our elbows and joined in the scrum. We got in fairly quickly and bought our tickets but then had to wait at the audio guide stall for about a week behind two French women who must have been requesting not only instructions on how to use their audio guide, but also a blow-by-blow history of the audio guide, a breakdown of the materials used in manufacturing an audio guide, 1000 interesting things you could do with an audio guide (like hitting annoying slow people over the head with it) and also a summary of world events for the past two millennia. Seriously, the cathedral almost closed for the day while they were getting their audio guides. Ridiculous.

The Cathedral of Seville (or the Cathedral of St Mary of the See) is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, and the third largest church in the world (after St Peter's in the Vatican City and St Paul's in London). The cathedral was built to demonstrate Seville's wealth, as it had become a major trading centre in the years after the Christian reconquest. Construction began in 1402 on the site of a former mosque, following the capture of Seville from the Moors; it continued until 1506. Next to the cathedral is the magnificent La Giralda bell tower. The tower, a minaret (Muslim tower) from the Almohad period of Seville, is constructed in several distinct parts, the lower two thirds being almohad architecture, and the upper third Spanish renaissance architecture.

With audio guides in hand, we checked out the amazing interior of the cathedral. The highlights of the visit were climbing to the top of La Giralda for superb views over Seville, the amazing Gothic alter piece (composed of 45 carved scenes from the life of Christ, carved in wood and covered with staggering amounts of gold), the tomb of Christopher Columbus and the Courtyard of Oranges (a large outdoor courtyard full of orange trees and a beautiful Moorish fountain). There was also an insane amount of quality artwork decorating the walls and a "treasury" room.

After our very enjoyable visit to the cathedral, we walked to Murillo's Gardens, a public garden in the Santa Cruz region. It was hot and sunny in Seville and reached 36 degrees by mid-afternoon, so some shade under the trees of the garden was very welcome. The main attraction of these gardens is the monument to Christopher Columbus. Columbus was sent out to explore on the good ship "Santa Maria" by Ferdinand and Isabel in 1492 and happened upon a rather large piece of dirt now called America. Great explorers, those Spaniards. Just next to the gardens is a street full of eateries, so we sat ourselves down there amongst students and fellow tourists and had some lunch.

With stomachs re-stocked, we continued south to the Plaza de Espana. The Plaza de Espana is one of Seville's most famous buildings and the epitome of the Moorish revival in Spanish architecture. In 1929 Seville hosted the Spanish-American Expo and numerous buildings were constructed for the exhibition in Maria Luisa Park, among them the Plaza designed by Anibal Gonzalez. The Plaza is a huge half-circle with buildings running right around the edge accessible over a moat by numerous beautiful bridges. In the centre is a large fountain. In front of the buildings all the way around are wall plaques representing all of the provinces of Spain.

After spending some time checking out the Plaza de Espana, we headed across the road to the large Maria Luisa Gardens. We sat down on a park bench for a rest in the shade and consulted our travel guidebooks to see if we could find a place to see some flamenco dancing that night. While we were busy reading our books, a guy stopped in front of us to ask us for directions. It was odd because he appeared to be speaking Spanish to start with (so why would he ask us for directions?) although he was wearing an Italian football shirt. We politely told him we only spoke English and could not help him. But he kept rambling in Spanish and then threw in a few French words and was waving his arms around all over the place. We again told him that we did not understand, as we only spoke English, and we didn’t know where anything was anyway. He was acting very strangely, as he kept looking behind us as he was talking, which is always rather disconcerting. Tim was thinking that there was something very odd about this guy, just as he felt his backpack (which was sitting on the bench beside him) start to slide off the bench. Tim grabbed it and spun around to see this guy’s mate standing right behind us, trying to steal the backpack while we were distracted by the first guy. Just as Tim grabbed his bag, two women who were sitting on a bench across from us had seen what was happening and yelled out to warn us, which was nice of them. These guys, realising they had been sprung, did not run off, but rather stood there and threw stones at the women and abused them in Spanish for warning us. We could not believe how casual they were about the whole thing. Anyway, it was very lucky that we rescued the bag just in time, as it contained some precious cargo in the form of Bear! There was no money or passports or anything like that in the bag, but we would have been pretty gutted if we lost Bear to some thieving Spaniards after 30 countries…

After that excitement, we carried on exploring the gardens and found our way to the museum of art and fashion, great for photos (see below). Back in the city centre, we had a look at a few shops and then returned to the hotel for a mini siesta – more of a change of clothes and a drink, before setting out for the evening.

Feeling refreshed and excited about a Friday night in the middle of Seville, we found a busy little bar close to the cathedral where we sat outside with a jug of sangria and watched the world go by. Our next stop was the place we had had dinner at the night before – we stopped in for a drink and some pinchito de pollo (so yum) as an entrée and then we carried on to a different restaurant for dinner. The plan had been to find a bar and watch some flamenco dancing after dinner. We had found plenty of places that offered full on flamenco dancing shows, where you sat down in a theatre and watched for 2-3 hours, but we didn’t really fancy that and plus they were really expensive. What we were looking for was a bar that had a bit of flamenco as the night’s entertainment. Apparently there were plenty of these around the city but we could not find any. Oh well. Instead we grabbed an ice cream for dessert and enjoyed a leisurely walk through Santa Cruz and back to the hotel. It had been a long hot day with plenty of walking, so we were pretty shattered.

Saturday

Saturday was our last day in Spain and there was still so much to see in Seville. We tried a different place for breakfast and it was really good – even better than Friday morning’s place. Unsurprisingly, the orange juice is very good in Spain!

Our first activity of the day was a river cruise. We walked across to the El Arenal region and found the Torre del Oro (which means Golden Tower). It was quite majestic. The tower was built by the Moors in 13th century and apparently got its name as it either used to be a store for gold and other treasure that had been brought back from naval explorations and/or was covered in gold gilt. These days the tower is home to a naval museum. Right next to the tower, we boarded our boat and set off for a one-hour cruise along the River Guadalquivir. A lot of the attractions that were pointed out to us were the bridges that we passed under, although it was interesting to note how much had been built in 1991 in the lead-up to the Expo ’92, held in Spain. There were several new bridges linking the main part of Seville to the large area on the west-side of the river where the Expo was held, as well as many new buildings, towers and other constructions, most of which were built just prior to the Expo in 1992. There was plenty of activity – kayakers, rowers, fishermen all making use of the river and dozens of people jogging or cycling along the side of the river.

Back on dry land, we decided to do a tour of the Real Plaza de la Maestranza bullring. This bullring is the second-oldest in Spain after the one in Malaga and is one of the most beautiful and famous bullrings in the world. Our 20 minute tour began with a look inside the bullring where we were given a brief explanation of what happens during a bull-fight and shown the various gates to the bullring – depending on whether a bull-fighter wins, loses or requires hospital treatment, he will use a different gate to exit from the bullring! Then the tour continued underneath the stadium, where there is a small museum of the history of bullfighting in Seville. And it concluded with a quick look at the stables, where the horses are kept in one side and the bulls in the other side, and the chapel, where bull-fighters go to pray before a fight! It was very interesting – something rather unique.

Surprise, surprise, it was tapas for lunch again. Not that we were sick of it, quite the opposite. After lunch we visited the Alcazares (Seville’s answer to the Alhambra in Granada). The Alcazares is smaller and a lot more compact than the massive, sprawling Alhambra, but it was also very pretty. This time we got some audio guide action, which meant we got some key info as we wandered around. We saw several couples posing for wedding photos in the Alcazares as we wandered around - and it really would be an amazing place for wedding photos. Our favourite part was the Mercury Fountain at the beginning of the Alcazares Gardens - a big square fountain with a statue of Mercury in the centre and water falling from a few metres above the fountain. Very cool.

It was another hot day in Seville – up around the 36 degree mark at one stage – so after the tour of the Alcazares, we decided to grab an ice cream and have a cruisy afternoon checking out some shops. We also walked back across to the other side of the river, across a fine bridge, which was probably constructed in 1991, and had a drink on Calle Betis (Betis Street). During our river cruise we had spotted the street running along the river on the west-side. It was packed full of bars and restaurants and looked really fun. So we had a drink there, looking out across the river to the centre of Seville on the other side.

That brought an end to our southern Spain sojourn. We both loved Seville in particular and may even return at some stage. We were keen to visit Gibraltar too, but we ran out of days, so another trip down that way may be on the cards in the future. No addition to the country tally, as we had been to Spain before, but we were grateful to leave with Bear still in our possession! Next up, Iceland in mid-November…it’s probably not going to be 36 degrees there.








Seville
Cathedral













La Giralda
Tower
















Columbus
Monument

















Plaza de
Espana












Still with
us










Plaza
again













Barcelona
wall mural












Parque
de Maria
Luisa










Museum of
art and
fashion











Tapas bar
with ponchito
de pollo












La Giralda



















Torre
del Oro
















Our river
boat











Bullring













Inside
the bullring















Alcazares

Inside
Alcazares













Ditto





































Alcazares
Gardens

Fountain in
main square

River
Guadal-

quivir

Granada, Spain

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning we had to get going earlier to catch our bus to Granada. One final breakfast buffet later, we set off. We caught the train across to Malaga and then caught a bus from Malaga to Granada. The bus took around two hours and we both slept most of the way.

Granada is a smaller city in the Andalucia region, situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The city is 738m above sea level and its population is around 240,000. It is famous for being home to the Alhambra. The Alhambra (meaning "the red one", shortened from its original name meaning "red fortress") was constructed in the 14th century as a palace and fortress complex for the Moorish rulers of Granada. The complex sits on a hilly terrace on the southeastern border of the city.

We had a bit of a mission finding our way to our hotel but we eventually got there and dropped off our gear. We had bought tickets for the Alhambra online in advance (crucial) and our time slot was 3pm. So we had a stroll through the city and got some lunch at a café on the way. We were staying near the university campus, so there were students everywhere – a contrast to Torremolinos! It reminded us a lot of our Dunedin days.

After lunch we headed up to the Plaza Nueva, where, we were reliably informed by a number of sources, there would be a minibus departing every two minutes for the Alhambra. We waited and waited and then we asked the woman in the information desk, when the next bus might be here. She told us that the minibus no longer stopped in the square and we had to go “two traffic lights and turn left”. With those extremely detailed and helpful instructions, we were not able to locate the mystery new departure point for the minibus, so we gave up and got a taxi to the Alhambra. We later discovered that if we had walked three sets of traffic lights and turned left into another square and then turned left again up a different street, then about 30 metres down that street, is the unmarked spot where the minibus leaves from. Nice.

What is not explained very well on the website is that the time on the ticket is not what time you can enter the Alhambra, but the latest time by which you must have entered the Royal Palaces, which are pretty much the main attraction within the Alhambra complex. So we arrived at the main entrance at about 2.55pm and picked up our tickets, at which point we were told that we would have to run to get to the Royal Palaces by 3.00pm, otherwise we would not be allowed entry. Fine, that’s OK, we can run, running is no problem. Then we saw a signpost just inside the entrance that read: “Royal Palaces – 20 mins walk”. Oh dear. So we pulled out our finest Usain Bolt impersonations and we managed to get to the Royal Palaces by about 3.03pm and they let us in. Phew. Not quite the leisurely and relaxed start to the afternoon we had expected, but we made it in the end! Unfortunately, this meant that we did not have time to get audio guides, which was disappointing. But we still had a fantastic time looking through the Royal Palaces.

The founder of the dynasty, Muhammed Al-Ahmar, began construction of the Alhambra as we know it today with the restoration of an old fortress, which had sat on top of the hill since the 9th century. His work was completed by his son Muhammed II, whose immediate successors continued with the repairs. The construction of the Royal Palaces dates back to the 14th century and is the work of two great kings: Yusuf I and Muhammed V. The Royal Palaces are stunning. They consist of three main chambers: the Gilded Chamber, a reception hall for the public and the administration of justice; the Chamber of Comares, official residence of the king; and the Chamber of Lions (or harem), intimate family apartments of the king. These chambers are linked by many other rooms, halls, passageways and beautiful gardens.

The Alhambra became a Christian court in 1492 when the Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabel) conquered the city of Granada. Later, various structures were built for prominent civilians as well as military garrisons, a church and a Franciscan monastery. Emperor Charles V, who spent several months in Granada, began the construction of the palace which bears his name and made some alterations to the interior buildings.

Our tour started in the Royal Palaces and then we explored the Alcazaba, the huge fortress complete with a bell tower. We climbed up on the walls of the fortress and got amazing views down over the city of Granada. From the Alcazaba, we visited the Palace of Charles V, a huge building with a massive circular open courtyard in the centre. Our tour concluded with a leisurely walk through the beautiful "Generalife" terraced gardens that look on to the Royal Palaces.

As we were admiring the beautiful gardens, the sky got dark very quickly and we soon heard some pretty impressive thunder closing in. Luckily we had finished our tour and we were ready to leave anyway. We caught the elusive minibus from the exit of the Alhambra just as it was starting to rain. Ten minutes later, as it dropped us back in the city, it was chucking it down. We took shelter in a bookshop and then a cosy little wine bar near the Plaza Nueva, where we were given free tapas when we ordered a drink.

Once the rain eased, we continued to explore around the square and we found a street full of Moroccan-themed bars and restaurants running down the hill along the back of the square. We had a beautiful Moroccan dinner in one of the restaurants and then a lovely walk back to the hotel – once the storm had cleared it was a quite a nice, still evening.

Thursday

Thursday began with breakfast from a nearby bakery. It was a warm and sunny morning. We decided to follow a walking tour from one of our travel guide books. The route started in the Plaza Nueva and went up the hill into the Albaicin area of the city, which starts from the Plaza Nueva and goes back up the hill in the opposite direction from the Alhambra. Apart from some pretty loose directions and a rather inaccurate map in the travel guide book, which meant we had to be at our navigational best, it was a lovely walk.

There is a maze of winding cobbled streets and alleyways all over the Albaicin hill. We passed through lovely little squares hidden away from the city centre below, beautiful churches and houses and even a 16th century monastery! The midway point of the walking tour is basically at the top of the hill, where there is another square in front of the Church of St Nicholas. The square looks out across the valley to the majestic Alhambra perched on top of the other major hill in Granada. We sat there for a while enjoying the view and listening to a merry band of buskers who were entertaining a sizable crowd with their tunes. The back half of the walking tour was mainly downhill and it ended with a visit to the "El Banuelo" Arab Bath Houses, which were constructed in the 11th century. There are no baths there any more, but the original buildings are still intact, complete with star-shaped skylights in the ceilings (see photo).

We rested our legs in the Plaza Nueva briefly and then we picked up some lunch from a nearby café. Just along from where we got lunch there was a coffee shop with very familiar looking signage outside (see photo below) - obviously trademark infringement is not a big deal in Spain...

We had booked tickets on a train from Granada to Seville, which was set to leave at around 4.30pm. So we filled in the afternoon by looking at a few shops, checking out a busy marketplace and then soaking up the sun in front of the cathedral. We were keen to visit the Royal Chapel next to the cathedral, but it was closed during the afternoon – siesta time…

Our train to Seville was great – it was really new and clean and there was plenty of room. The views of the Andalucian countryside were beautiful and the three hour train journey absolutely flew by. A couple of times we passed fields full of massive black bulls (they are the symbol of Spain after all)! We arrived in Seville before 8pm.

Royal High
Court, Plaza
Nueva













Court of the
Myrtles, Royal
Palaces















Chamber
of the Lions,
Royal Palaces
















Moorish
artwork
on walls















Court of
Daraxa,
Royal
Palaces










Tower of
the Ladies,
Partal











Alcazaba
fortress












View from
fortress walls -
Palace of
Charles V










Tim on
fortress
walls











Megs at
Alcazaba













View of
Granada











Palace of
Charles V












View of
Alhambra
from the
Generalife
gardens










Tim in
gardens


















Ferdinand
and Isabel
















Megan on
Albaicin hill












Megan in Arab
Bath Houses


















Starbucks...
oh no, Starbars

Torremolinos and Malaga, Spain

Saturday

After a fairly chilly start to autumn in London, we were keen to get one last burst of summer before embarking on a long, dark, cold winter. So we set off to the Costa del Sol on the southern coast of Spain for eight days. We flew into Malaga on Saturday morning (25 September) and took the short train ride down the coast to Torremolinos, a beach resort town. We had read before arriving in Torremolinos that it was renowned for being a very “touristy” town (bordering on tacky) and usually full of English visitors. This proved to be the case.

Don’t get us wrong, Torremolinos is a nice enough place. It’s just not particularly “Spanish”. We went there with the intention of chilling out for a few days and getting some sun, which we did, so it served its purpose. We arrived in the town centre, with was buzzing with tourists. Apparently we were in the middle of a week-long local festival, so there was a lot of live music, flamenco dancing and, of course, drinking going on in the town centre.

Our hotel was very central, which was brilliant, and it was very nice too. It had two massive swimming pools! As it was not peak season, we managed to get a fantastic deal on the hotel that included “half-board”. So we had all you can eat buffet breakfast and dinner every day we were there. What we perhaps should have realised was that when you get sunny weather, a cheap hotel, all you can eat buffet and bargain prices, you also get swarms of elderly folk. There were literally thousands of them – all over our hotel and, come to think of it, all over Torremolinos. It was like being in that 1980s movie “Cocoon” – old people in a swimming pool.

Unfortunately Saturday afternoon was cloudy and drizzly, so we explored the town centre and found our way to an Irish pub (see, not very “Spanish”) for a couple of drinks. Dinner in the hotel was really nice – for a buffet, the quality was surprisingly good. We were very full after dinner so we went down to the beach for a walk. It was so nice to be by the sea again - we think the last time was in Monaco in March!

Sunday

The front half of our trip was all about relaxing, so there were no signs of early starts. The only reason to set the alarm was that breakfast finished at 10am. Sunday began rather grey as well, so we decided to take the opportunity to visit Malaga. Malaga is the second largest city in the Andalucia region in the south of Spain. It is on the coast and has a population of 560,000. One of its big draw cards is that it was the birthplace of artist Pablo Picasso, and it is now home to the Picasso Museum. The train from Torremolinos to Malaga took around 20 minutes and, on arrival, we wandered in to the centre of Malaga.

Malaga is a bit similar to Torremolinos, in that it is rather touristy and lacks a real Spanish feel to it. The town centre is very pretty, but just outside of that, especially around the train station, it is a rather unattractive concrete jungle. We headed straight for the Picasso Museum and we had to queue for a short while, but it was definitely worth it. The museum has a collection of over 150 of Pablo’s finest on display. The building itself is very new and the large open spaces with plenty of natural light present the collection magnificently.

Picasso (1881-1973) was somewhat unique as a famous artist, in that his works received acclaim during his lifetime, which meant that he was very successful and became very wealthy as a result of his paintings. It was amazing seeing the stark contrast between his early works and his later more famous works. Early on his paintings were very life-like, whereas later in his career his paintings were very abstract, creative and often bizarre. In Picasso’s own words, he claimed he spent an entire lifetime learning to paint like a child. We both loved the visit.

By the time we emerged from the museum, the sky had cleared and it was a very hot, sunny afternoon. We grabbed some lunch at a cafe outside the front of the enormous Malaga Cathedral and then we checked out the shops and the rest of the town centre. We bought a really cool Gaudi bull ornament in a souvenir shop. Then we sat in a lovely square in the sunshine and ate some ice-cream before bidding farewell to Malaga and boosting it back to the Torremolinos retirement village.

Monday

It was another slow start on Monday. We enjoyed another fantastic buffet breakfast - bacon, eggs, hash browns, baked beans...pancakes with nutella...fresh fruit and yogurt...awesome. After breakfast we rolled down the hill to the beach. It was a little cloudy to start with, but it soon cleared and was a hot sunny day. The beach was almost empty early on but gradually got more busy. The water was too cold for a dip, but it was just nice lying on the sand reading and relaxing. Torremolinos has a very nice beach - huge and very clean.

We had a late lunch in one of the town squares at a little tapas bar that had a big stage out the front where there was some flamenco dancing going on. Free entertainment! In the afternoon we had a look around town and then bought some sangria and local beer and retired to our hotel balcony. It was a lovely calm, warm evening.

Tuesday

Tuesday was the hottest day we had so far on the trip. We spent the late morning/early afternoon lying by the hotel pool. The pool itself was pretty chilly at first but fine once we were in and it was a nice relief from the scorching sun - we managed to acquire a little sunburn!

Our lunchtime tapas tradition continued and then we had a massive walk along the beach. We stumbled across a professional sandcastle-builder (see photo below) who had constructed a magnificent sandcastle of two volcanoes with little huts on the sides of the mountains and a tunnel system within the sandcastle that allowed him to pour water in the top of the volcanoes and it trickled out the bottom into a little pool. Very cool.

After our final buffet dinner we went down to "Tina's Bar" and watched Arsenal beat Olympiacos in a Champions League match. That brought a close to four very relaxing (read lazy) days on the Costa del Sol. The next four days were to be (slightly) more adventurous.






Megs by
huge Europa
statue,
Torre-
molinos









Tim in
centre of
Torre-
molinos











Not so
lovely
Malaga












Tim in
Malaga











Malaga
town
centre












Malaga
Cathedral
















Megan
celebrating
the sunshine!











A square in
Malaga












Sangria -
Torre-
molinos











Torre-
molinos











The
beach!













Torremolinos
town centre
















Tapas
for lunch















Alongside
the beach















Hotel
pool











Best
sandcastle
ever












Beach
again












And
again











Spanish
ladies
dancing
in the
street...









...for
local
festival