Seville, Spain March 30,31 and April 1

Doubled back to Madrid in order to jump on a fantastic high speed train to Seville. Love doing this First Class thing. Trains are typically a nice comfy way to travel (at least the more developed countries) but this was one step up. Sat in my big cushy seat and drank vino, ate one of the best transportation meals I have ever had and had a lovely view of the landscape zooming by.

We stayed at the Samay Hostel near the center of Seville. Since there were six of us we got a room to ourselves. Most people think that hostels are for the 20 something’s but it just isn’t true. The younger crowd definitely out number everyone else but you can easily steer away from the party hostels. At the Samay there were quite a few over 50’s and a few parents with kids like us.

I adore Seville. This is one of those cities I could live in. Finally over our jet lag and ready to get some serious sightseeing on. Our hostel was in Barrio Santa Cruz which is a high energy neighborhood right in the middle of everything. After getting settled in and getting a bit of a seiseta in we decided to just wander our ‘barrio’. In some ways it reminded me a lot of the cobbled alley like roads of Venice. The lanes are so small in fact that that we often had to jump into a doorway to avoid getting run over. Good fun.

The first night in Seville we got our tapas on big time. Found a great little tapas bar and gave a bunch of goodies a try. During this dinning experience I realized that everyone in Spain dines outside no matter the temperature. In fact, most places don’t really have enough room to hold more that a couple tables. I really notice as it was bloody cold out and has been but everyone still eats outside. Very Colorado of them.

On our second day we did a nice walking tour around town and spent some quality time at the park near our hostel….rockin’ slide park for the girls. Amazing how quickly little kids make friends. Ever time we hit up a slide park, which is often, the girls have conversations with kids that don’t speak a word of English. Even though I don’t want to have kids of my own, they are pretty cool little beings.

After the park we went to the Cathedral. Ever city in Spain it seams has a major Cathedral and they are always simply referred to as ‘the Cathedral’. Mr. Christopher Columbus has a fancy little crypt here. Never been a fan of they guy so it was not such a draw for me. But….this Cathedral was absolutely overwhelming. I look at things we build today and wonder where our creativity and honor has gone. The delicate sculpting of the Cathedral in Seville are mind blowing. For me this is the number one attraction in Seville. Next we walked the 30 plus levels to the top of the Giralda Tower (Cathedral tower). The views on the way up were great but wow…the view of Seville from the top of the Giralda Tower is one you don’t want to miss.

I think this is also the day we took a horse drawn carriage ride around the touristy stuff. The best part of the carriage ride was the stroll through Parque de Maria Luisa and Plaza de Espana. I usually am not one to do a carriage ride but I must admit that this was a great idea….thanks mom.

Since I am a bit behind on my journal I can’t quite remember which day we went to the Flamenco Dancing. I do know that is was the same day that we ate ice cream at a hoppin’ plaza just behind our hostel and guess what….we hit up another slide park after ice cream. Anyway, we went to a Flamenco Dance show at a bar like setting (kid friendly). First drink was included and since we were watching Flanenco Dancing in it’s birthplace we decided to have a Spanish specialty….Sangrias!

The show was super cool, I really wish I had any kind of talent. I have to get my dance on behind closed doors, I think my dreams of becoming a Flamenco Dancer will remain just that. We did get some video of the dancing, will have mom post it for me as it is on her Flip.

After the show we went once again for tapas. We have already fallen into the Spanish ways of dinning after 9 or 10pm. The bar\tapas joint we hit up this time was jam packed and everyone was loving their eats. Legs of ham hung from the ceilings (common around Spain). Everything in Spain is ham….ham this….ham that. Thank Goddess I love me the ham. Would love to take a leg with us on the Camino de Santiago…just strap it to the back of my pack. Wicked!

Let’s see how did we get out of Seville. Oh, that’s right! Getting to Portugal from Seville looks like it would be easy by not so. We ended up taking a bus as it cut the travel time in half. As we were sitting in front of our bus, mere moments from loading luggage I notice that one of the stops was Lagoa and two or three stops later was Lagos (main and final stop…big tourist city).

We had bought tickets for Lagos, of course, as that is where everyone goes in the Algraves region of Portugal (Southern Portugal). I turned to everyone and said ’wouldn’t it be funny if our resort were actually at Lagoa since the names are so similar’. Well we pulled out our confirmation and lo and behold the Boca da Rio was is Lagoa. If a bus doesn’t have a record of tickets for a particular town they don’t stop so we had to sort it out. We did get off in Lagoa instead of Lagos. What was really amusing is that most of the folks on the bus were also tourist and they assumed that the fact that we where getting off ment it was Lagos. Luckily for them the bus driver let them know that the stop was Lagoa not Lagos.

Easy trip to the Algraves. Portugal should be fantastic!

More photos of Seville