Seville, Spain
06 October 2015
Virginia and Dennis Johns
Tues Oct 6 Dennis had done some research on Seville and he was certain it had some sights worth a land trip. It was about a 2.5 hr drive to Seville from several of the spots we had stopped on the southern coast of Spain since leaving Barcelona and this was our final chance to see it. After about a week knocking around Gibraltar sight-seeing, locating grocery stores, chandleries, and hardware stores and also figuring out how to access the Internet, we took a 2 day trip to Seville with Judy and Bill. The Gibraltar airport runway spans the isthmus of the Gibraltar peninsula, so the bus we took to rent a car at the airport crosses the middle of the runway. They have to close the road whenever a plane is landing or taking off. The bus takes you to the Spanish border, and then we had to walk across into Spain as the rental office is actually in Spain. The border crossing was surprisingly casual as officials on both sides of the border didn’t bother to look at our passports and just waved us through.
Our trip into the city of Seville was exciting as the streets were very narrow and most were one way. We were guided perfectly by our TomTom GPS navigating device. Arriving at the hotel, the street was narrow and there was no place to park even to unload our luggage. Dennis had traffic stacking up behind him so he pulled onto a sidewalk on a corner of an intersection to let the traffic through. The sidewalk had no curb but it did have low-lying metal bollards looking like something you’d tie a boat to. When the hotel clerk came out to direct him to the parking garage, he directed him to complete the turn from the sidewalk onto the next street. Not-seeing the bollard, he ran into it, crunching the fender and making it impossible to open the driver’s door. Thank goodness we’d accepted the full insurance package. As we did our sight-seeing, we noticed most cars had some sort of scrape or dent on their sides –indicative of the narrow-street hazards.
We stayed at the Hotel Europa and it turned out to be in a very optimal location. Most places we wanted to see were within short walking distances of the hotel and the station for the light rail we took for another site was at the end of the street of the hotel. We were hungry for lunch and so we put our bags in our room and headed towards our first stop, the Cathedral, looking for a nice restaurant along the way. We ate lunch right across the street from the Cathedral and we watched as group after group emerged from the tour exit. After lunch we went searching for the Cathedral entrance and discovered that the church takes up a couple of city blocks. It is so large that we could see it from several spots around town and it became a landmark to keep us from getting lost as it was so near our hotel. There was a long line waiting to enter, so we moved right along towards the next site on our list –the Real Alcazar, another Moorish palace. Having recently visited Alhambra, it was interesting to compare. The Alcazar had undergone considerable restoration (much more than Alhambra), including repainting of the blue, red, and yellow Islamic filigreed details. It was nice to see the original coloring –very beautiful. Alhambra was immense with several scattered buildings/palaces requiring a lot of hoofing around. The Alcazar was a single building with several rooms and courtyards, so it was little effort viewing the entire site. The exterior walls of Alhambra were quite plain but some of the walls in this complex had a decorative element quite different from any we had seen. It truly looked like someone had thrown the equivalent of stucco spitballs at the wall, but it was not random, so it appeared to be an intentional design. The garden complex was nicely shaded and not too large to fully explore. The gardens were very well maintained and green. One part was a labyrinth made of hedges; Dennis couldn’t resist, but quickly emerged, not finding it very challenging.
We headed back to the hotel for a bit of a rest before our evening activities. We had reservations for a 5:00pm show at the Museo del Baile Flamenco. We wanted to see a Flamenco dance performance and the reviews on TripAdvisor suggested that the one at the museum was the best. We were able to conveniently purchase tickets at our hotel; the receptionist also indicated that while there were other good shows that included dinner, this one at the museum had no dinner but had superior performers. We arrived early so that we could tour the museum first. There were a number of multimedia exhibits which included films of dancers doing the various styles of Flamenco. We hadn’t realized there were so many variations. It was kind of nice to just sit and watch a couple of films after our long afternoon on our legs. The show itself was excellent. All seven performers (2 guitars, 2 singers, 3 dancers) were very good. One of the dancers was a woman; the rest were men. The dancers performed all together twice and then in different combinations such that they each got at least one solo performance. We loved the Flamenco guitars as well as the singers and dancers. One guitarist especially received an ovation after a flawless solo performance. Flamenco is a very energetic dance and the front row seats are often sprayed with the perspiration of the performers (we were several rows back). These performers were all similarly spirited and dripping profusely by the end of their routines. One has to wonder how such a lively dance evolved in a country where the temperature is so hot most of the year!?
Then it was off to find a dinner spot. Not seeing anything that especially grabbed us in the neighborhood of the museum, we decided to head towards our next site, Playa de Espana, which we were told would be all lit up at night and a beautiful sight. Dennis had done the majority of the research on sightseeing spots and boy did he do a good job. We walked off the light rail and headed towards the plaza when we saw a lot of white tents pitched in a park. Looked like a festival to us and indeed it was the Festival de las Naciones. What a surprise as we had specifically researched if any festivals were happening while were we there and had found nothing listed. Each food booth was selling food from a different country. The aromas wafting from all the booths made eating at the festival a necessity. We each had an item from at least two different countries. Spain, Mexico, India, Brazil, Venezuela, Portugal, Argentina….not sure exactly which we ate and which we just drooled over. Several other booths were selling arts and crafts, candies, or souvenirs. There was a stage but no entertainment that particular night. But we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, washing down our international cuisine with beers and margaritas. On our way out of the festival we looked for a dessert booth but only found one selling candy. They had cotton candy that Dennis was tempted to get but it was packed in plastic containers and not freshly spun. Virginia likes gummy orange slices so she was ordering some of those and then Dennis spied some red licorice. Virginia loves red licorice and she had just tried some from a grocery store in Gibraltar and was very disappointed. Dennis bent down to smell it and it smelled just like what he remembered so he suggested we get some of it. Virginia was hesitant but Dennis added one vine to the order. One bite and Dennis exclaimed it was really good and Bill, who doesn’t like red licorice according to Judy got some too. We planned to pick up some more on the way back to the hotel.
The Playa de Espana was indeed lit up, providing a very beautiful sight. The Playa was built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. Forming a half-circle next to the large tiled plaza, the long building is Renaissance Revival style Spanish architecture. It now houses government offices or special events. There is a moat all around the plaza and there are small row boats to rent. There is a long blue and white porcelain fence along the front edge of the plaza in perfect condition and gorgeous. The plaza is located in the Parque de María Luisa (Maria Luisa Park) and the sound of bugles and drums drew us further into the park. We didn’t walk far (it is a huge park which we didn’t get to fully explore) before we saw a circle of about 25 young men (one woman) all in their 20’s standing in a large circle with their director in the middle, practicing. Further on was a drum circle which was walking towards us, but stopped to form a separate practice circle. We stood there for a while enjoying the pleasant evening air and the musicians before heading back to the hotel.
Wed, Oct 7 Our first visit was to Metropol Parasol -wooden structure located at La Encarnación square, in the old quarter of Seville, Spain. It was designed by the German architect Jürgen Mayer-Hermann. The structure consists of six parasols in the form of giant mushrooms and said to be inspired by the vaults of the Cathedral of Seville. The underground level of the structure is built over the Antiquarium, an ancient site of Roman and Moorish ruins now displayed in a museum fashion; you get to walk among the ruins on a suspended walkway (this was an added bonus that we weren’t expecting). The street level covers the historical Central Market and the roof of this level is the surface of the open-air public plaza which is shaded by the second level. The highest level provides panoramic terraces with views out over the city. It was an amazing structure and you have to look at the pictures to do it justice. It was completed in 2011. The juxtaposition of this modern art covering the ancient ruins was interesting, not to mention the contrast to the other neighboring city architecture. The Antiquarium museum itself was worth the visit to this part of the city and brought back memories of our exploits the previous year in Turkey, Greece, and Italy.
Next we walked across the Guadalquivir River to the Capilla de los Marineros (Sailors’ Chapel). It was much simpler than some we had seen in Spain, but the various altars and chapels were still quite ornate and lovely. Not sure why it is called the Sailors’ Chapel as we didn’t see any reference to sailors (pictures, statues, etc). Afterwards we sat at an outdoor restaurant overlooking the river and ordered lunch. Walking back over the bridge after lunch, we noticed the lovers’ locks that we seem to be finding in every country. Iglesia Colegial del Salvador was on our tour plan and we had learned that if we bought a ticket there, it would include entrance to the Seville Cathedral which allowed us to skip the long lines we had seen the day before. Both of these churches were beautiful, full of silver, gold, and stained glass artworks –easy to see where all the silver and gold from the New World went. Del Salvador was known to have a large organ, however the one in the Cathedral was massive in that it was comprised of four identical sets of pipes, each the size of the one in the Del Salvador. In fact the Cathedral itself was so large that Bill commented it might even be bigger than St. Peters Basilica in Rome. We had seen the Cathedral from numerous places around town, including from atop the Parasol so we had a good chance to see the roof which was so decorative in and of itself. There were numerous domes and spires –all so ornate.
It was time to hit the road and make our way back to the boat. We took the car across the border to the Queensway Quay marina in Gibraltar. The marina has a small parking lot which always seemed to be full but when we arrived, we were lucky to find a space making our return to our boats a breeze. Unfortunately, that’s were our luck ended.
Thu Oct 8 The next morning Dennis and Bill filled the car with gas and drove it back across the border to return it in Spain, then headed back to the boat. Now that all sounds simple, but they in fact had quite a little adventure. They returned the car and started to walk across the border. Our first crossing of the border on our way to Seville was quite nonchalant (officials not even looking at our passports) and that was followed by similar treatment both into Gibraltar and back to Spain in the car. Nevertheless, they were stopped and asked for their passports upon returning to Gibraltar on foot. Bill had mistakenly picked up Judy’s passport rather than his own and they were not going to allow him across. Dennis went across to take the bus back to the marina to retrieve Bill’s passport and go back to rescue him. As he goes to buy a bus ticket, he can’t find his wallet. He buys a ticket with the change in his pocket and continues to search for his wallet – nowhere to be found, must be in the rental car. He comes back to the marina, retrieves Bill’s passport, meets Bill back on the Spain side of the border, continues on to the car rental shop, searches the car…..no wallet –Spain and Dennis’ wallet are truly a bad combination (lost it in Barcelona also on a bus!). They email Virginia “wallet lost start cancelling the cards”. They return to the boat and spend the evening cancelling cards and gratefully discover that no charges had been made on any of them. Dennis had just purchased a propane tank refill before he left to return the car, so he didn’t have much cash in his wallet so it was mainly the inconvenience of the loss. The wonderful trip to Seville overshadowed these inconveniences as we have many great memories of that time with good friends. Plus we didn’t have time to brood as the weather forecasts were telling us we had a good window the following day to head across the Gibraltar Straits and if we missed it we wouldn’t be able to leave for another week. We moved right into passage planning mode!