Sleepy Seville

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And welcome to Seville 34*, flat, sunny. Like being in Adelaide on a hot summer day. Dry heat, bright light. Not a huge city but the YHA was a mile out, they don´t have a metro, so you´re on a bus trying to get there and recognise street names etc etc .Hard work and somehow took 90 minutes to get 2 miles to the hostel.

The YHA, Hostelling Internationals in Europe are set up like boot camps for student groups and when I arrived there were about 80 ten year olds in the foyer. I never have to share with them but the entire no alochol, no chill out areas and no free internet do not get the party crowd in and they seem pretty sterile.

Luckily, changed to another hostel the next night, before going back for one. Seville is small, there are a tonne of tourists from Europe in particular and the streets are lined with gift shops. The Fine Arts Museum took about one hour to look through but spent endless hours wandering about tiny streets, hiding from the heat 😊

Visited the cathedral very quietly during mass and got to experience what it was like before the tourists flooded in around 11. The Cathedral and Giralda are amazing. The religious artefacts, islamic influence on the buildings and view from the tower made the climb worthwhile. Still not as glam as the SA churches but monstrous great building. Must have had a thousand tourists inside milling about. Huge bells in the clocktower, lots of images of popes etc and wonderful historical paintings... and Chris Columbus´tomb.

Spent one fabulous evening on the rooftop terrace of the inner city hostel with Molly, the 19 yo supergirl and Malaysian guys. Swallows swooping everywhere between the buildings and cats on the roofs. Good fun, great sitting in the plazas and chilling out over brunch but liked Madrd much more and the fiestas are all starting up, too!

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