Friday, June 29th, Tavira Portugal to Seville Spain
There are no trains between Tavaira, Portugal and Seville, Spain but we have 10:15 A.M. tickets on the express luxury bus to Seville. After Art’s local bus experience yesterday, he is not looking forward to today’s 3.5 hour bus ride but when we slip into our spacious seats with a T.V. screen on the rear of each seat he brightens. The bus ride is comfortable and delightful and we watch the landscape scroll past our windows. The gently rolling countryside is agricultural with countless groves of dusty green olive trees dotting the golden landscape. We have a 15 minute bathroom stop along the way but in the crowded stop we neglect to take note of which of the identical busses we disembark from and upon our return are confused and the bus signage is not clear. The main women’s bathroom is under repair and a line of about 10 women wait for a single stall while men come and go quickly in their bathroom equipped with a half dozen stalls. One gutsy woman ahead of me marches into the men’s restroom and I follow behind her and find a vacant stall. Not a big deal, but I might not have had the courage to do this had she not pioneered the way and would have spent an uncomfortable second half of the bus trip with an overly full bladder.
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| Luxury bus to Seville |
We arrive in Seville before 2:00 P.M. and take a taxi to the Amadeus Hotel in the heart of the old city. The taxi driver takes a less than direct route to our hotel and Art follows his meandering route on Google maps and grumbles his displeasure. I surmise much of the meandering is due to one way streets barely wide enough to accommodate one vehicle. Our hotel and its location in the picturesque back streets of Seville is sublime. Once again, the Rick Steves guide book has served us well and although Hotel Amadeus is a bit pricier than most of our hotels at approximately $140 Euros a night, it’s tiled and grated entry, Persian carpets, crystal decanters of complimentary port wine and herbal ice tea combined with it’s musical themed décor make it well worth the price. We deposit our luggage in our room and take note of the thick towels, crisp linens, bathrobes and slippers but we have sightseeing on our agenda and first head upstairs to the rooftop bar to inhale the view of the surrounding city rooftops and get our bearings.
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| Hotel Amadeus, Seville |
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| Gated entrance to Hotel Amadeus |
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| Music themed Hotel Amadeus |
The afternoon is hot but not unbearable and we stop for tapas at an outdoor café on a busy street just above the Cathedral. The waiter suggests we order Tito de Verano, a cooling summer drink that is a mixture of chilled red wine and lemon soda; Seville’s version of Sangria. We share tasty and inexpensive tapas of grilled squid, eggplant tapenade and fried potatoes. Art orders a second Tinto de Verano and our bill is less than $20. Revived by the food and drink we begin the Rick Steves old city walk. It is cooler in the confines of the maze of narrow cobbled streets and we meander past private residences peeking through ornate iron gates into private jeweled gardens. Intimate squares are tucked inside the old city and the wisteria and other flowering plants sweeten and cool the air.
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| Seville old city walk |
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| Private garden in old Seville |
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| Seville old city walk |
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| Water pipes in the old city wall |
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| A delightful street pavement cover for cables! |
When we come to the Seville Cathedral, the third largest in Europe after Saint Peters in Rome and one in England, there is a 20 minute wait to enter. We are grateful when it is our turn to enter the cool interior of the immense gothic cathedral. Aside from being spectacularly ornate, Christopher Columbus is entombed here. We are not tempted to climb the three hundred feet to the bell tower but instead, enjoy the ambience of the shady cloistered courtyard before returning to the streets of Seville.
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| Seville Cathedral |
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| Gothic interior of the Seville Cathedral |
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| Tomb of Christopher Colombus |
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| Altar piece |
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| The Seville Cathedral Bell Tower |
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| Cathedral cloister garden |
Outside, elegant carriages and well groomed horses stomp with impatience in the afternoon heat waiting for a fare. I surmise that they are practicing their Flamenco steps.
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| Horse drawn carriages |
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| Horse drawn carriages |
Our hotel recommends a tapas restaurant around the corner and we enjoy wonderful Tapas at La Bartola accompanied by premium glasses of red wine. We share a tempura sushi rolls, eggplant towers and ricotta stuffed zucchini flowers. All is excellent and affordable.
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| Eggplant tapas tower |
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| Ricotta stuffed zucchini flowers |
Art wants to find an ATM and is convinced that he will get the best rate at the Deutche Bank. We set out along the fashionable Avenue De La Constitucion. Street performers dance the Flamenco and musicians perform at every corner, their music clashing at times and all competing for an audience. Panhandlers sit with their bowls competing for sympathy tossed their way in the shape of a coin. Gypsy women thrust sprigs of rosemary towards me and I decline their offering, knowing that it ultimately will come with a price. We walk for miles getting lost and back tracking and I grow cranky and give Art’s Google mapping skills a bad review. Ordinarily Art will tell me that it is just an 8 or 12 minute walk from point A to point B and I usually reply cheerfully, “I can do that,” but tonight I decide that from here on, I will set a timer on Art’s mapping. This lightens the tension that has fallen between us and actually proves to be a rather fun game. After a few too many “time’s over,” we take a taxi to the food market. The market is another trendy and upscale iron and glass paradise for the human gourmet but certainly not for the Iberian pigs. The haunches of many a pig hang from above, a dripping cup for the leaking fat and juices attached below each one. We watch a butcher with a gleaming knife give a waiter a lesson in cutting paper thin slices of the meat from the haunch. He weighs and rolls the slices arranging them on a platter for a waiting customer.
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| Trendy food market across from the Triana district |
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| The bridge to the Triana district |
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| Triana district at night |
From the market we cross the bridge into the Triana district, a recommended district for strolling and night life. Side walk cafes line the riverside promenade but we don’t find the district especially compelling and return to the old city on foot. Art continues to urge me on with Google map promises of short walks between points of interest. We stop for drinks at a corner restaurant and eventually meander back to our hotel.
