Seville, Spain

The photo above is called a WHITE SANGRIA. I had never heard of white, we always used to make Sangria with red wine, but it seemingly tasted ok. I did also manage to get some San Miguel beer while in Spain. I remember buying it at about 100 dozen at a time for the bus trips, this time only 6 cans.

We loved Seville. The Hotel we stayed at was a bit different, some idiot decided that black was a great colour scheme so everything was black from when you walked through the front door.

At first arriving at the Hotel there was no parking right outside so I drove around the corner and some very enthusiastic bloke helped me park in the very same spot I had my eye on. I got out and locked the car and he came and wanted money for his help. Well now, this Kiwi does not give into that sort of nonsense so back in the car and drove off leaving him waving and shouting behind me. I went around the block and parked right outside the hotel so all was good.

We checked in and got all the bags out then took the car back to AVIS. This turned out to be a bit of a challenge also as the instructions said Parking 3. My GPS and us had no idea where Parking 3 was, We foing 1 and 2 and some no number parking but the elusive Parking 3 took a bit of finding. Once found a very bossy looking Spanish woman came out with a clipboard and checked the car over, looking closely at every single mark, but once again all good and checked out ok.

We opted to walk back to the Hotel which turned out to be quite a walk, but quite an adventure. Just shy of 3km and 45 minutes walk which a few wrong turns probably was a bit more than that, thank goodness for google maps and my Airalo data eSim.

Now back to the Hotel and it’s blackness. If you dropped something on the floor that was not white it was damned hard to find again. There was a step going through the bathroom one step up then 2 steps along then one step down to the toilet, all black and hard to spot the step. It really needed some Kiwi roading people there to set it up with road coned or something to show the step.

From our hotel we did manage to walk a to lot of places. Plaza de Espana was a highlight, a huge area well laid out showing a lot of history of Spain. Santa Cruz area, we walked along the river past Torre del Oro and the bullring, the cops were celebrating their new Helicopter so that along with a few old Helicopters and a lot of police were present there.

Just when we thought we had seen almost everything we needed to I saw a thingy for Setas de Sevilla, the largest wooden structure in the world like a huge mushroom or honey comb. There was a lift up to the top of it and a walkway around the top of about half of it with great views of the city.

The Tapas meals a couple of times but it was the same restaurant both times which had great food.

We did go to Markets and Supermarkets while we were away as we had a few self catering places we stayed at. The legs of cured meat in Spain, Portugal and Italy were great and so cheap compared to home. They slice it by weight while you wait right off the leg or you can buy an entire leg and many places.

The Alcazar was on my todo list but I left it too late to get tickets so maybe a next time.

We left Seville on a bullet train to go to Barcelona, about 5 hours instead of about 2 or more days driving. Had we known in advance we would have taken food and drink with us on the train as the carriage with the cafeteria in it was slow and only one person making everything including making sandwiches.