Start of a romance? by Grant Rayner
We spent an afternoon in Seville during our stay in Rota, the trip was about 2 hours by bus each way and there weren’t a lot of bus times to choose from so we weren’t able to stay long enough to have dinner there. Julie and I loved it though, we wandered around the old part of the city, took in the cathedral and took the boys on a 40 min horse drawn carriage ride around the sites.
I recommend the Horse drawn carriages, in many places these would be a rip off but at 45 Euro’s for 40 odd minutes for our family of four it felt fair, and after speaking to a few of the drivers it became clear it was a set price for all of them, perhaps a local initiative to protect visitors, it certainly made me feel more confident in them, we all enjoyed the ride and giving our feet a decent break.
After the carriage ride we made our way back to the Plaza España, this had been used in one of the later Star Wars films so we were able to inject a little more interest into the boys especially Lucas.
The park gardens were lovely and are surely a great haven in the midst of the city, we didn’t have the time they deserved to sit and enjoy them, but would certainly have welcomed the chance had it been available to us.
In the old city we found that as ever the Spanish have designed the city to be comfortable in the heat, tall narrow cobbled alleys providing plenty of shade and keeping us a lot cooler than in the open sun drenched spaces.
Seville has a charm that is reminiscent of a lot of old European cities, a young couple walking these streets couldn’t help but feel they were in a romantic novel or film, the feeling of a living breathing city with a rich past is inescapable, Julie and I both felt it, the boys mainly felt the cobbled stones repeatedly impacting their feet while they waited on our countless photo stops and followed our aimless meanderings.
I don’t doubt that for many people Seville would be their favourite city, I found nothing to fault it, at least not in the parts we saw, we had but a taste and we were adamant it would not be our last. So when the time came to plan our trip from Rota, Spain to Lagos, Portugal, we opted for a night in Seville to break it up and see what she looked like by night.
Again we were cheated out of having a very long day by my work and sleeping hours, the bus timetable and a mix up with the AirBNB host’s representative that meant we had to wait an hour before we could unburden ourselves of our luggage. We then had to find the Bus station for the next days trip and pick up our pre-booked tickets.
So with all the tiresome chores and journeys behind us it was time to explore again, the twilight is Julie’s favourite time of day, and in any hot country it’s a welcome respite from the heat, so we happily wandered back to the Cathedral to see it in a different light and then around the alleys nearby on the almost impossible task of picking a place to eat.
Jacob (our fussy child) agreed to let us try a Tapas restaurant on the street, on the understanding that he would be rewarded with Pizza the next night of course, so we managed to find an alfresco table just a hundred or so yards around from the Cathedral, the waiter was a little surly to begin with but warmed as the evening went by, the setting was far better than the food which was just passable, I enjoyed the oxtail stew but it’s not a dish Julie would ever love regardless of the restaurant, so, more for me!
We walked for a while after dinner to find a bakery (yes these are open at 10pm and later in the city) and let the boys choose a treat and grabbed some chocolate croissants for the morning.
We had an early start the next day and the boys were flagging badly so we grabbed a cab with a most originally decorated interior and left the town as the locals just started their evenings, the Spanish kids playing frisbee and swarming over the little climbing frames and slides in the cities squares.
Julie and I agreed that next time around we’d stay for at least a week to see the town properly, and we recommend this to others too, if you can only spend a day, by all means do, but expect to be left wanting more.
Airbnb Apartment – The Apartment was only a short walk from the centre of Seville, it had 2 bedrooms, a living area, bathroom, everything you need. It cost NZ$90 for 1 night
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