Blogs from Seville, Andalusia, Spain, Europe - page 71

Did I mention it was hot here? Wow, every day has been in the high 30s or up to 40 degrees. For one of the largest cities in Spain, you sure wouldn´t guess it. By about 1pm everything shuts down and its like a ghost town. Seville is a mass of narrow, windy streets (many of which are unmarked), cafes, bars and churches. There are beautiful parks everywhere with fountains, statues and beautifully landscaped gardens. You have to be careful which ones you go to though, as some of them I have found are where the sketchy folk like to take their naps, and bathe, and bathroom... Its funny, yesterday I was scorching hot, and just wanted to sit down on a shady park bench and read my book, but then discovered I didn´t want to ... read more

So I've been back for two weeks, but I thought I'd share the rest of the trip with you! Better late than never, right? After Pam and I left Italy, I went to Spain for one more week of fun, relaxation and time with family. Pam went back to the bay, unfortunately. I spent four days in Madrid- went to the zoo, shopped at the Rastro (a large public market that happens every Sunday), watched the World Cup Final and visited the cousins in La Bersosa. My nephew Andrew graciously accompanied me on a three day trip to Sevilla and Cordoba where we had a blast! We took the morning train to Sevilla and stayed at a great hotel where we were able to swim and work out at the gym. On our first day in ... read more

There's always plenty of Hotels and hostels in Sevilla it seems, had no problems finding somewhere to stay. Just stayed one night since we didn't really have anything specific to do in Sevilla. We just wanted to do the crossing to Marocco as soon as possible. After another few hours of trains, we switched to the last one bound for Algeciras and were promptly thrown off together zwith all the other passengers by a grumphy conductor. He were saying something about a fire in spanish and that the train could not leave, there would be a bus to take us instead. Waited for the bus for about an hour, then we could board the train again since the fire was now under control. During the trip we saw the burnt grass still smoking next to the ... read more

Hey everyone!!! I've been super busy! Thursday I got to Sevovia and met my family-- they are super nice and so fun! I'll write more about them tomorrow. We rode the AVE fast train to Seville from Madrid it's smaller than Madrid but larger than Segovia. Our hotel was right next to the largest cathedral in Spain, and the 3rd largest cathedral in the world. It was so beautiful! We went up in the tower, and the view was incredible! It seems strange here because a lot of the bars and restaurantes were closing at like 1 am. It seems like the thing to do was to hang out in the streets, kind of like BYOB. I've tried two new drinks while I've been here... a Mohito, and how some plaves make it, it should be ... read more

So, the plan was supposed to be simple. Get ourselves to Seville, find our hostel and eat tapas. We lined up at the train station to make our reservation, only to have the ticket man say something in spanish about having to buy a ticket and handing us our railpasses back. (Unfortunate Event #3) - Our railpasses were not valid. It is a long story, but back in Italy when we got them validated they were filled out with the wrong date. No one noticed until Luxembourg when a train conductor crossed out the date and put the correct date. We thought it was odd as he didn't sign it or stamp it or anything. But everything was fine up until today. The man told us to go to information. Frustrated, I asked the lady if ... read more