Last year, G and I scored some rather cheap flights with British Airways to Seville for our birthday weekend in February. Seville was featuring rather highly on my bucket list and I was rather excited about having a little city break to Seville…I wanted to visit before it got super popular as the city is featuring on every European hot destination listing I’ve read lately.
We arrived quite late in the evening…it was G’s birthday on Valentines Day (he is the most disorganised V Day baby I know…and we celebrated on the plane journey to Seville…hello free bubbles)…we checked into Hotel Casa 1800 (I will do a full review later…I just found the lost memory card holder with all my hotel photos…yay!) for one night.
^^This is what happens when an Englishman sees sunshine in February…he pulls a weird face!
The following morning we were up early for breakfast…and for a bit of sightseeing…all my pinterest research told me that Seville was going to be awesome for balcony, window, tile and door porn…my kinda city you see!
It…
…didn’t….
…disappoint!
I may have done a little bit of tile shopping…
…and fitted in a little tile shoefie!
I skipped down the little side streets around the Alcazar…
…the sunshine made me do it…
…checked out the souvenir shops…I love looking at souvenir tat…I don’t normally buy it but sometimes something cheeky catches your eye!
Seville is super colourful…
…boasting a lot of yellow…while red is my favourite colour, I absolutely adore yellow as well…it brightens the world up!
We popped back to the hotel to check out…and then checked into our second hotel…the Hotel Alfonso XIII which I was finally ticking off from my hotel bucket list (full review to come…and you might be surprised to learn which would I preferred best!)
G and I wandered down to the Alcazar for a snoop inside the royal palace…it’s the main draw card for Seville and I will do a full post as I may have taken hundreds of photos inside…
…it is truly beautiful…
…however you may be surprised to find out this wasn’t my favourite palace.
Seville Travel Tip: Book your Seville Alcazar tickets online here and print off the ticket…it means you don’t have to queue which can save hours during the summer months!
Seville is a bit weird and wonderful in the way that when you want to go out sightseeing you can’t…places decide to shut at 1pm or 3pm and don’t reopen till the following day or they had different opening hours each day…so our plans were constantly changing due to this!
Waking up bright and breezy on my birthday…I started the day with a lush breakfast at the hotel and then we wandered down to join our Segway Tour that we booked the day prior (unfortunately we had to delay the tour as I ended up crippled over on the side walk with extreme stomach pain…Seville Oranges were to blame…go figure I would be highly intolerant to the little buggers when they’re so tasty!)…so we headed back to the hotel so I could suffer in privacy and G filled me up with loads of pills…just over an hour later we headed back for our segway tour.
^^^Queue stunning photo of me…no shame…and at 36 I can now officially balance a bicycle on my head!
The tour was wonderful and we were out and about for 1.5 hours…and learnt the most beautiful story about Seville and it’s oranges…apparently the King’s love wanted to see snow and the only way he could make it possible was by planting orange trees in the city so that when the blossoms fell on the ground it made it look like snow…I pointed out to G that he’d never made it snow for me!
We also found out that Christopher Columbus is buried in Seville Cathedral…apparently he didn’t want to be buried in Spain so the Spanish found a way around this.
^ They’re an intelligent bunch…let’s suspend him above the ground so he’s technically not buried in Spain!
Walking to the top of the Giralda was high on my list as rather than horrible stairs (which I’m afraid of).…it’s just a lot of ramps which were rather easy to walk up…even for a unfit fatty like me. The views from the top over Seville were stunning…
…totally worth the entrance fee! We didn’t have a pre-purchased ticket so G queued and I went and bought us ice cream…it was my birthday hence it was allowed!
Just don’t be up the top of the bell tower on the hour like we did…thankfully it was only 1pm…doh!
^Ring-A-Ding-Ding
Seville Travel Tip: If the queues are horrendous at the Seville Cathedral then make your way to the Church of El Salvador and buy a joint ticket there and then head back to the Cathedral as you can jump the queue as you have a pre-purchased ticket.
Our last day in Seville was spent running an errand for Lisa…she wanted some material as she’s just taken up sewing and the Seville is material heaven…you can imagine the fun I had taking a million and one photos of material for Lisa in New Zealand and then having to get her to take a decision…
…once a decision was made, I then had the task of asking for the material in Spanish and how many metres I required…thank god for Ricky Martin singing in Spanish otherwise I would have had no clue how to answer in Spanish…I may need to buy a Ricky Martin cd for my car so I can learn some new words for my Peru trip (just popping over to amazon for a mo…and I’m back…just bought his Greatest Hits…I’m not joking either, I did!)
Kasha had written a great post about a hidden gem in Seville and I decided that I wanted to explore it as well…and I wasn’t disappointed…I actually preferred Lebrija Palace to the Alcazar…
…it was beautiful, less touristy (I was the only tourist)…
…and simply breathtaking…well worth the 5 euro entrance fee.
I made my way across the bridge and over to the area of Seville called the Triana district, where all the tiles were made and some are still are (unfortunately a lot of it is now made in China)…
…I may have picked up a few tiles to take home with me (I’m planning on making an outdoor seat with all the tiles I’ve collected over the years) and a few nibbles from the market…
…plus it gave me a bit of time to photograph the hell out of this area…
…as it’s just so darn photogenic.
A lady came up to me and asked if it was okay if she could photograph the same door as me…I told her that she should ask the door first…I think I confused her!
^^said door!
Even the locals started to look at me as I photographed the old buildings and pointed out other places to photograph…
…don’t you just love it when you get a helping hand.
Making my way back to the hotel…with copious metres of material, tiles and fresh fruit…I wondered why I had a sore shoulder later on…
…I grabbed G and we made our way to Plaza de Espana…I left the best for last…
…honestly this place really blew me away and apparently it’s been used in a number of movies over the years including Lawrence of Arabia and Starwars…
…I had a back poser moment with the added bonus of wearing a hat (it was rather sunny and warm!)…
…and a tiled wall moment (the last time I saw my cape…I left it behind at Seville airport…and I only purchased it a few weeks before…boo!).
I’m going to Plaza De Espana spam you a bit more…
…as this place rocks!
Leaving Plaza De Espana, I saw a young gentleman with all these large cut outs of flamenco dancers and I couldn’t resist for one euro…
…the best one euro ever spent…
…especially when he told me to open my hand as he had something to put in it…I couldn’t see what he wanted to put in my hand so there were a number of giggles. I knew Lisa would be proud of me and there is nothing wrong with doing touristy stuff…that’s why we all travel…I’m a tourist and I’m proud!
Before we knew it…our city break to Seville was finished and we were flying back to Gatwick airport! I finally managed to fall to fall in love with Spain…on my third attempt…I still don’t see what the fuss is about with Barcelona and Valencia to be honest *yes I know people love those cities…I just don’t get them*
I absolutely adored our time in Seville and if you’ve got the city on your bucket list, get there now before every Tom, Dick and Harry books a ticket to this fabulous city.
P.S. I am going to upload a whole lot more photos to Pinterest from our Seville trip as there were just too many to put in this round up post…I didn’t want you getting RSI!
So have you visited Seville…did you love it, loathe it or felt indifferent to the city…everybody loves different destinations so would love to hear your thoughts.
xx
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