Advertisement
Published: October 30th 2010
Well I can now say that my holiday has begun. It has a lot with not being able to understand anyone, and also having to wear a jumper and jeans. As much as I was looking forward to the A380 plane flight, it turns out not to be much different to any other plane. And from now on I am never getting a window seat on a long flight ... 14 hours cramped in the one seat was not much fun. I did get up once, and luckily the guy beside me was just as skinny as me, but it still made me vow to do things differently. The funny thing is, before we took off the hostess offered me a different seat, assuming I wouldn't want to do what I foolishly ended up doing. Oh well, you live and learn.
I do have to mention the inflight entertainment system though ... it was so cool. About 30 different movies, the same again for television shows, about 100 different music albums, and a nifty plane tracking system (to know how long you've been flying, in case the fact escaped you). The other bit was a camera in the tail
The Giralda
Yes I went to the top, but there are ramps instead of steps .. makes it easier.of the plane that gave you an outside view ... a pity we were in darkness for the entire flight.
So I'm now in Seville after a 2 hour stopover in London, a 2 hour flight to Madrid, and a 2.5 hour train ride on the high-speed AVE. That train is awesome ... you don't realise you are gloing that fast until you are passing cars on the motorway like they are standing still. And the number of olive groves was amazing ... a bit like watching the cane fields pass by at home.
I like Seville. It hasn't got many tall buildings, and the streets where I'm staying in the city are old and narrow. The main building in the town is the Cathedral, which was first a Muslim Mosque, the converted to a Christian church. The bell tower ( the Giralda) at the side was once a minaret (used to call people to prayer) but converted to a bell tower by the Christians. At 9am each morning the bells ring for about 20 minutes, then the normal time-keeping chimes the rest of the day. I toured the cathedral on the first day with a guide, and
The Giralda
Under the bells at the top of the tower she really was useful for pointing out little things. For example the layout of the church with the choir in the dead centre, the pillars that were rebuilt after tumbling down, the now-abscent dome (fell down after five years ... too heavy), and the various graves and gold treasures. Now did you know that Christopher Columbus is now buried in the Seville Cathedral? Well they assume it's him, or even part of him ... the poor guy has been moved a few times since he died. From Northern Spain where he died, to Seville, to the Dominican Republic, to Cuba, and now back to Seville. Each of those places say they still have him, but I suppose they need to keep up the tourism.
The other important building here is the Alcazar (pronounced al-KATHa in Spanish). It started as a palace for the Muslims, but once again the Christians took over and did it up a bit for themselves. The good part is that they kept a lot of the Islamic architecture, and just added bits for themselves. The Alcazar is an amazing place, with all the intricate detail on the artwork and the serenity of the gardens out
Patio de las Doncellas
A courtyard at the Alcazar the back. So glad I went there.
The little bit of Spanish I tried to learn has been a bit useful. The first food I bought was a bocadillo de jamon and a zumo de naranja (bread roll with ham and an orange juice). It was about the only food names I knew, so it was funny when I realised how easy it was to get. I generally seem to be sticking to English-names menus though ... better safe than sorry.
And there are orange tress everywhere... however they are just for decoration and are really bitter to eat. Apparently they started planting them years ago as a mean of providing shade, and the blooms of white flowers each year smell really nice, if only for three weeks. Another interesting thing is the garbage disposal units. They are these metre and a half tall grey units that people put their rubbish in and it somehow gets collected underground. Because the streets are so narrow it's impossible to get a garbage truck in to do the collecting.
Another nice place I saw was the Maria Luisa Park, although it was mainly the parts of Plaza de Espana. It
Plaza de Espana
Inside Maria Luisa Park was built for the 1929 World Fair (or you could say Expo '29), so although not relatively old, it is still nice.
Most of the tourists I see here are of course Spanish, but close behind them are the French and Russians. Next would be the Americans and British, but I have only heard about four other Australians pass by. The other funny thing are the horses and carriages lining up to give tourists rides around the city. There are probably about 30 of them waiting around the streets, and I wonder how they ever make money. You do see them occasionally with rides, but usually they are waiting around swatting the flies of the horses. It is nice to see the horses, although the smell did detract from my icecreams.
There are lots of flamenco shows here every night, some expensive and some not. There is a place two doors down from my hotel that has a one hour show every night. I asked the man at my hotel if they were any good, and he offered to ring up and book me a ticket. I said not to worry, then walked two doors down, bought a
ticket, and was back within 90 seconds. Nice of him to offer though. Now never having been to flamenco before I wasn't quite sure what to expect. There was a man in his 40's or 50's sitting playing the guitar, another lady singing, and a third lady doing the flamenco dancing. The stage area was fairly small (about 4 metres by 3 meters) and the audience was about 90 people. The show started off slowly but by the ended I really enjoyed it. They have enormous passion for what they do, and dancer worked up quite a sweat. She did lots of twirling of her dress and stomping of her feet, all in an artistic way. In the end I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it, part of that was seeing the guitarist do his thing.
So now I get to leave the city and check out the countryside on my cycling tour. I know it's not going to be very strenuous (maybe only 40km a day) but I've never done anything like this before so I don't know what to expect. Hopefully I'll have some nice pics to show when I finish, even if they're
taken from the support van.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0338s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Annette Comiskey
non-member comment
Spanish
Hi, Sounds like you are having a great time ... although Shane laughed at your understanding now of why aisle seats are good. Now you know why he ALWAYS asks for one. Next time take Brooke with you - she will help you with the Spanish - years of watching Dora the Explorer.