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Published: August 27th 2007
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Seville Cathedral
3rd largest in the world=pretty damn big So Liz finished off the last blog in Madrid.
Next stop on our short tour of Spain was delightful Seville. Despite its stifling heat, this has to be one of my favourite places so far with an interesting mixture of Muslim and Christian cultures not seen in European cities, grand buildings, interesting tales, and some delicious food.
We were only here for 2 full days and with so much to do, we really had to pack in the sightseeing. The first day we walked to the amazing Cathedral which is the 3rd largest in the world behind St Peters Basilica in Rome and St Paul’s in London. We decided to have a look inside but after being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the interior, found it wasn’t any more spectacular than any other Cathedral.
It did house the tomb of Christopher Columbus and despite the numerous “No camera flash” signs and obvious need for quiet as we were in a Cathedral, there were loads of loud Americans being loud Americans and snapping away with their flashes on. (No offence to any Americans that read this but obviously it did irritate me).
After the cathedral we did a
tour of the Alcazar (Royal Palace), a fascinating complex of buildings influenced by the Muslim culture. Construction began in 1364 and it has been gradually built up since. It was here that Columbus planned his famous voyage to Asia where he happened to stumble onto America.
One of the most interesting things about the Alcazar is that in summer the inhabitants lived downstairs to escape the oppressive heat, whilst in winter they lived on the 1st floor to escape the humidity. Pretty clever huh! Liz loved the gardens which were lush and green with loads of colourful flowers, remarkable considering the dryness and intense heat at this time of year.
That night we went to a Bullfight which was an experience. Despite what you see in the movies, it is really just an unfair contest between one bull and several men and by the time the matador enters the ring the bull is injured and exhausted. We did see (well I did, Liz couldn’t stand watching) the matador get flipped head over heels by the bull which was hilarious. He limped off in his tights for 10 minutes with an ice pack on his head whilst the other men kept
the bull busy waving their capes and running away when the bull turned in their direction.
In case I hadn’t mentioned enough how hot Seville is, it was 37 degrees Celsius at 8.40pm that night.
The next day we did an informative and interesting walking tour of the Santa Cruz district. Santa Cruz is an area of Seville with tight, maze-like alleyways which were designed to disorientate attacking forces and also minimise sunlight and therefore keep temperatures down. It was here that Don Juan earned his legendary reputation and with the houses so close together, you can see how he went from balcony to balcony doing the deed. After a delightful Tapas lunch we spent the afternoon wandering the streets looking at some other sites and ducking into shops wherever possible to take advantage of the air-conditioning.
The following day we took the bus to Lagos on the South West tip of Portugal’s Algarve. Whilst Seville was one of our favourite places for many reasons, we quickly fell in love with Lagos for just two reasons - the beach and the seafood.
Our three days in Portugal consisted of waking up, having breakfast, walking down to the
beach, coming back into town for a big lunch, having a well-deserved afternoon siesta, back to the beach for another couple of hours, big seafood dinner, out for a few drinks, bed.
The culinary highlights were the squid shish kebabs and the seafood pizza that were so good that we weren’t even embarrassed to do the English thing and go back to the same restaurant the next night and order the same food. Maybe it’s a good thing we’re heading back to Oz.
The beaches were very scenic, with white sands and aqua water which was a lot warmer than we expected considering we were swimming in the Atlantic.
The only downside was that our visit coincided with the notorious ‘Van Tour’ which is a massive group of Aussies and Kiwis who tour around Europe in mini-vans basically giving us a bad reputation as dirty, loud booze guzzlers. One of the tourists said there were 50 odd vans in Lagos at the time so you can imagine the effect it has on a smallish town. To be fair we didn’t see much of them before around 11pm which was generally when we called it a night.
However despite that
a very relaxing time was had and it was a perfect end to our Spanish and Portuguese adventure.
After returning to the UK we had a few great weeks packed with tourist adventures (Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament) and farewelling many of the great friends we made along the way. Then following a few tears (I admit I shed 1 or two) we said goodbye to London.
By the time I publish this we’ll just about be back in Oz, having had a hot time in Dubai and wonderful time in Thailand. So we’ll see you all soon and probably send one more update with some of the photos.
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