Andalucia Part One - Seville

Andalucia, which is the Southern part of Spain, was definitely one of my favorites.  It is the most "Spanish" of all the regions, rich in culture, tradition, architecture, and full of life.  Definitely somewhere to take your  loved one some day, but what can also be enjoyed by a group of friends.  Our first stop was Seville.  Running (literally) to the AVE train from Madrid, after getting on the wrong platform, we boarded the train maybe 15 or 20 seconds before departure.   THAT was a close one.  But standard operation by us.  Quite tired and hungover at the same time!  But we made it to our hotel, Husa La Seises, right in the heart of Seville.

Seville is a beautiful town.   The heart is the old city, which is centered around the cathedral with the prominent La Giralda tower, and the adjacent Alcazar, it's two main tourist attractions.  Although packed with tourists, particulary on the weekends, The old city is a charming district with little windy brick and paved roads, through old buildings that eminate that old Andalucia feeling.  Lined with residential buildings, little tapas bars and shops, random little shops, and the occasional hotel and hostel.  The cathedral itself was huge and beautiful. It still baffles me how they could make such amazing and enormous architecture back then.  The climb up the Giralda tower was long, but the city view was worth the trip.  After the cathedral we hit the beautiful Alcazar palace next door.  A beautiful palace from the Moorish reign (the moors really know how to build I tell you), with typical Moorish style including courtyards, little fountains, blue and white tiling and the occasional engraved arabic writing lining the walls.  The most amazing part of the Alcazar was the amazing Jardines de Alcazar -- the gardens.  A huge area lined with palm trees, and all sorts of trees, plants, bushes.  Runnin water and multiple fountains, it was a colorful and beautiful site full of life.  The Alcazar and the gardens was my favorite attraction at Seville!

Just walking around Seville you can appreciate the beautiful city that it is.  Away from the old city we walked down Constitution Ave past the University, a tram also runs conveninetly back and forth through the city.  The walking-only street is lined with cafes (not excluding 3 starbucks), bars, ice cream parlors and shops, and various other little attractions.  You can walk past two amazing hotels, one of them, the Alfonso XIII, housed in old palace for the Royal Family, is worth seeing. Further down along the river you can hit Plaza de Espana, a beautiful and semicircular plaza in the middle of the Parque de Maria Luisa, lined with tiles, with a fountain and horse carriages around.  A beautiful and soothing place.

Nightlife in Seville is nothing to miss out.  On the weekends, the area just west of the old city where all the shops are is crawling with action!  Streets packed to the rim with people walking, shopping, mingling, and eating.  There are street vendors and random street performers sometimes, but it is fun to just get into the action.  The streets will be packed until about 1030, 11pm when shops start to close and people make a move for dinner. And then you head out to start your night!

On night one we made the tapas bar rounds.  Where streets lined with all sorts of little tapas bars serve food till past 2am, and you just hop around, order whatever is left on the menu, and eat it at the bar, or on stand-up tables outside, talking and mingling with people, as you down your cerveza, vino tinto con naranja (orange flavored red wine), or sherry.  One of our favorites was Duplex for tapas. You could spend a week and not hit most of the tapas bars in this  town!  On the second night we crossed the river for dinner along the Ave Betis in the Triana district, with lovely views of Seville by night.  We also hit up one of the Flamenco clubs.  The south is the heart of Flamenco, with all types of places.  We hit up La Carboneria, which was like a Flamenco-fusion place, but it was fun.  A good fun time it was indeed.  The next night, we hit up the club Catedral for our Saturday outing, which was filled with locals as well as tourists, and many Americans who were in town studying and visitin from adjacent towns.  It was quite a fun time I gotta say, even though the music was top-40ish, they managed to play soem good house and hip hop as well.  We did meet a few girls there (who actually came up to US, which was nice given the failure of our game with most Spanish speaking only girls). One was hot, one was cute, one was not... But all were nice!  We danced to Soulja Boy, and gave our emails, and we are even hangin with them when they visit NYC later this month.  Good times!  In general, the girls in Seville were smoking hot!  All over Spain really, but I guess in Seville the weather was beautiful, and the girls followed suit.  I think one afternoon we just sat at a coffee shop on the promenade, and just looked at girls.  No, we aren't dirty men, we were appreciating Spanish culture :)

One thin we missed in Seville was bullfighting.   Missed the season by 1 week.  Although, if you think about it, do I really want to see a cruel display of an unfair match of man killing a beast ( and pretty much torturing the poor thing before killing him).  So maybe we were better off.  I saw one as a kid in Marbella, so I'll leave it at that.

After Seville, we hopped on the train, and head for Cordoba! 

Comments

[yatin]

i still read your shit! still waiting to hear your airport story