The bus station is only about 10 minutes walk from the marina and the journey took about 2 hours. The countryside is mostly deserted scrubland with occasional olive or vine areas, not a great deal to look at but at least the coach was air-conditioned!
On arrival we walked towards the hotel but given it was well after lunchtime we stopped at a restaurant in a side street and chose one of the ‘menu de dia’- really nice olives, bread and a good sized plate with three sections containing cod in tomato sauce (really nice), tuna and potatoes, crisps with Iberian ham. Together with a glass of wine this cost E10.50- we thought that was good for the centre of a major city and the prices throughout our stay were reasonable.
Our hotel – ‘The Gran Hotel Lar’- was reasonably positioned but had clearly seen better days. Everything was functional but tired and the food at breakfast was basic if plentiful. The air-con and showers were OK which was very important in the temperatures which reached 44 degrees on one day. The redeeming feature were the staff who were very responsive. We had two problems whilst there, a broken lock on the room safe and a missing nightdress mixed up in the change of bedding, in each case they had fixed/solved the issue within 15 minutes. As the cost was covered by airmiles it was OK but we wouldn’t recommend it.
In the afternoon we walked to the ‘Mushroom’, an architectural construction in the centre of Seville shaped like 6 giant mushrooms, wandered around the streets of the old town and found a bar near the hotel for late-night Rioja and local ham. On Friday night we booked to see the 09.30pm Flamenco show which included a glass of wine (there are two performances per night) Chris wasn’t very keen. We of course had forgotten that most restaurants don’t open until later in the evening and didn’t think that we could wait until 1030pm to eat. We eventually found a small tapas restaurant Da Pina which kindly cooked us a small mushroom risotto and cauliflower cheese, delicious and just did the trick to keep us going. The Flamenco show was very good, the dancers were excellent - passionate, energetic and dramatic, particularly the men. There was a performance by a solo guitarist which was brilliant... Chris actually admitted that he was surprised at how good it was. Despite there being two shows a night the performers clearly demonstrated a passion for their art, it didn’t feel like a standard tourist show.
We continued the tourist bit for the next couple of days managing to keep going in the heat until around 5.00pm on Friday but flagging by 3.00pm on the Saturday.
Seville is sold to tourists as four areas to ’enjoy’-1) the old town, 2) the sector from the 1929 celebrations of the ‘Discovery of the Indies’ (America) 3) The Expo 1992 area and 4) Triana, the old Jewish quarter and ceramics specialist.
1) We enjoyed the Old Town, it has narrow streets to keep the sun out, lots of bars, squares, restaurants and there are people about with lots of energetic Spanish language – they seem to argue a lot or perhaps it’s just how they speak. The Alcazar, the royal palace of Spain is fantastic, beautiful decoration and wandering the same rooms that Phillip of Spain used at the time of the wars with England, gets the imagination going, did he stomp around swearing about damn Brits! The gardens are shady and interesting and there was an underground swimming pool, a long cool space under the palace – Chris wanted to do laps but it seemed to be frowned upon! We also enjoyed the Torre del Oro, an old defensive tower, now a navel museum, the Mushroom was interesting for the views over Seville. Worth a visit was the ‘Cathedral ‘ though it’s a bit dark and plain compared to many Spanish churches, the San Salvador church is the opposite, there was so much gold-leaf and ornate carving you could hardly see any stone wall – very OTT. A great place to walk around but a lot of the buildings are in need of renovation and many of the official sites are only in Spanish. We had good well priced tapas and a small beer was only 1 euro!
Score: 8/10
2) The Indies exhibition buildings are spread around the south of the city. We succumbed to the tourist bus as it was so hot (18E pp for two days) and the bus drives you round these buildings. However most are now in other use (dance school etc) and all you can do is look at the outside. We did visit the Archives of the Indies which would have been fascinating but there was no English anywhere so difficult to know what you are looking at.
Score:2/10
3) The Expo 1992 area was built across the river to the NE of the old town. Again the tourist bus takes you round here. The first time we got off at the ‘Navigation Museum’ (again the discovery of America) only to find it closed at 3.00pm and there was nothing around. We had to find some shade and wait 30 minutes for the next bus. On our second time through this area as we went to Triana it becomes clear that nearly all the buildings are closed and semi derelict, all you are seeing is the outside of some scruffy exhibition structures.
Score:0/10
4) Triana
On the western bank of the river this has a few interesting buildings and one pleasant street to walk down. The Castle of San Jorge is interesting – the headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition (yes, I know – nobody expects that!). The presentation includes English and you can see the remains of the walls in a chamber under the current marketplace building. The market was lively and we had a coffee and the ‘toasted bun with local ham slathered with olive oil’ that is a regular snack in the city. The ceramics museum was..............yes, closed and there were only a few very touristy pottery shops
Score: 5/10

The tourist bus was quite poor value compared to other cities – only every 30 minutes and only one way round the circuit so you had to sit through stuff again. Given much of the sites shown were not worth visiting we regretted buying this. We should have used the local buses, trams or metro.
We generally had good food and drink at reasonable prices. We ate tapas all the time to try different things. A bar near the hotel became our last stop on the way back each evening for a glass and some ham or cheese. There is no point going out to eat before 8.00pm, nothing is open and you then have to wait until 10.00pm before there are many people about. On the last night we ate in a recommended tapas bar called Bartola which was very good and varied the tapas – eg. Swordfish compared to the normal ingredients. It was a somewhat more expensive though.
Our take – go to Seville and enjoy the old city but select the other things carefully and don’t bother with much of the tourist trail.

The journey back on Sunday was uneventful though we returned to find Splice had turned a muddy pink colour! Sandstorms in Chipiona had deposited browny/pink dust over everything!

Photo shows a detail inside the Alcazar Palace