Seville, Andalusia, Spain and Canary IslandsSEVILLE I
On the road towards more
history
We are already quite efficient
with getting up – having coffee – breakfast – packing the car and being on the
road again. Today we left with some sunshine and we are heading west towards
Portugal with the last stop in the capital of Andalusia. As we headed out, we
saw several storks, they are all standing on top of light poles it was super funky.
We explored Andalusia:
- It’s in the south of Spain and the world’s largest producer of olive oil: half of what’s used in the world comes from here: 1.5 tons a year (no wonder we see so many olive trees)
- The people living here have the 2nd highest life expectancy in the world with an average of 83 years
- The name Andalusia comes from the Arab Word Al-Andalus
- Here in the Sierra Nevada is the highest mountain of Spain
And that is why we stop in
Sevilla:
- The city is approximately 2200 years old – a legend says it was started by Hercules
- It’s the capital of Andalucia
- Fernando III conquered Seville in 1248 (12 years after Cordoba)
- In 1489 Fernando of Aragon married Isabel of Castilla and became the king of both countries
- In 1503 Seville was granted monopoly on trade with the new world and Spain started to convert the Indians
- By 1580 Seville became the largest city in Spain
- During the golden Age of Seville, the Spanish explored and conquered the world, this was also the time of the inquisition: 1492 Columbus sails to America – 1519 Hernan Cortez conquers Mexico and Magallan circumnavigated the world – 1532 Pizarro conquers Peru
- In 1630 Madrid became Spain’s largest city
- In the 1649 plague one third of the population was killed in Sevilla
- An interesting fact is we are inland, but the Guadalquivir river allowed Seville to be an inland port
Finding a way around in a car
in Sevilla
Normally it is not very
complicated anymore to find our way as we have google map: ok sometimes google
map is not that smart. And today all went well until Google send us into a
no-drive in zone in the tourist walking for the Basilica de Macarena and the
way it wanted to sent us was blocked off: that means Gine has to try to find
the way and sometimes when google said it is one way it is not, and sometimes
when google said you can drive it is a one-way in the wrong directions, so we
turned several times around – Paul even pulled a U-turn in the city!! And we
drove tiny little streets and magically we found the place: only you can’t
drive in, so we stopped in the no-parking zone and went looking: the Adress
Plaza Dr. B: and then we need house #10 which we found after ab it checking and
see there: Apartment 5D.
A bit Early at our Airbnb
Our host doesn’t speak English
and our Spanish is not fluent – but we got it, we can’t have the room until 2,
and we couldn’t get the keys until then either, which was a bit a bummer – as
we before checked if we can come early. The Parking was not that straight
forward either, as it looked like there is no parking and then you park in the
middle of the street. But we did find a parking spot – and later in the evening
when we thought we turn the car around we did found an even better parking in
front of the door.
A roundtrip in the Bus C4
As we have nothing to do, we
decided to go in search of a bus stop, it was not that simple, but then we did find
it, in front of the parliament building. Gine found there a map and said to
Paul we want C4: But C4 did not start here – that is when we found another bus
stop with the C4 route (C means it is a circular route making it easier on us
dump tourists). We decided to go on a scenic ride, as c-busses do circuits:
Perfect we paid and then were sitting for close to an hour in the bus touring
around Seville, which was cool, as we could figure out, where to go off and on,
where the bus stations are. And now it is also time to head back as it is 2 pm.
Oh, and we did went into a
Chinese kind off “all you can find” store – super tiny hallways and everywhere
staff (lots of staff) – you need something, I’m sure here you can get it here
(if you can find it between all the staff).
There is not enough room to
change my mind
as we check in we discover our
room is tiny, ok we kind of knew that, but it is super tiny: a shower with a
kitchenette, a little toilet room with glass windows and an electric toilet
(yes it is super weird), the tables are fold out, and the bed is a pull out… it
is so tiny, that Paul said that there is not enough room to change his mind.
Plaza de Espana
- Was built in 1928 for the Expo Exhibitions and is near the Guadalquivir river
- The pavilion shows historic scenes and maps from every province of Spain in Alphabetical order
Time to head out and finally see
something from Sevilla: per bus to the downtown and we get off and wander
through Park # 1 to come to the Plaza de Espana: ok so that is so super cool.
The little water way where you can rent a rowing boat (yes you can!!!), the
fence covered in painted ceramic. The stones with little painted ceramic in it,
the huge half round building in the back and a lot of pictures, the horse
carriages – people watching. We sit down, and look, go up on the balcony to
have a beautiful overview over the whole plaza and then walk along the bottom
to check out the different provinces of Spain we visited already like Granada,
Cordoba, Cadiz, …. We even saw some flamingo dancers. It was a lot of fun to be
here.
Along the River
After walking through the park
and crossing the road we reached the river and then walk along it, until we found
a perfect spot to sit down and have a drink and watch more people. We did this
until we thought it’s time to slowly head back, towards the Torre de oro where
we hit the bus C4 – yes we are now experts in the bus system.
It’s like living in a camper
Back at the parliament building:
we decided to walk along the road to decide what’s for supper and found an open
supermarket and decided why not have ham sandwiches – it’s not that we had that
before. It was cute to find enough space in our tiny little room but we got it,
it is a bit like living in a camper – room is sparse. With the sun shining in,
we relax in our teeny tiny space.
2025-05-22