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After our very brief little experience in portugal it was time to take the bus to Seville. This meant that we were back on track with our planned travel so we were happy there was little disruption to the trip.
We arrived in Seville about lunch time and walked to our hostel. It really was a great city. So compact and easy to get around. We checked into our hostel just in time for a free walking tour of the city organised by the hostel. These things really are great, they're unofficial volunteers who take you round and give you their take on the city, full of quirky little bits of information. Its customary to tip them but 4 or 5 euro for a 2 hour tour is great value and I dont think there's a better introduction to a place.
Seville is such a different place to everywhere else I've been in Europe, I was interested to come here to see how the city is with equal christian and moop influence. It is the home of Tapas and Flamenco so it really conjures up all the Spanish stereotypes we are used to in our part of the world.
Tapas
Thats the fried camabert with strawberry sauce in the top right.The architecture is like nothing else I've seen with the hybid of christian and muslim styles.
The hostel we stayed at was a really social place. After the first afternoons walking tour we went out for a tapas-crawl around the city, trying different drinks and dishes in 3 different bars. We'd made a pact to try everything but there was nothing too far out that we ate. The highlight was a dish of fried cubes of camambert with strawberry sauce! like nothing else I've ever tasted, and for a non chese lover not something I expected to like at all. The first bar we went too was our favourite and we ended up going back the third night of our stay - it felt like an achievment decoding the spanish menu!
I wont bore you with all the details cause the pictures will tell some stories once I get them up. But the food, sunshine, laid back pace of the city and architecture really made it worthwhile coming here. I loved Plaza de Espana, which we found out was the location of Naboo in Star Wars episode 1 so that was good to feel like a jedi. The royal Alcazar was also a great place to spend an afternoon being occupied by chrisitans and muslims at different times being packed full of history and conflicting and complimenting symbolism. It really got me thinking looking at how striking the styles were put together when in so many parts of the world one style dominates with other religious symbols either covered up or destroyed as if you can deny the history of past events.
This is definately somewhere I want to come back to one day, we didnt really want to leave. but next stop, the capital, Madrid.
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Julia
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Hilarity
Sounds like you guys are having an amazing time! I just read all your blogs so far at once, and have to admit to "lol"ing at your Seinfeld comment. Doing a great job blogging, Benny! Keep up the good work. Take care of each other and continue to have a blast! See you when you get back.