Welcome to the red, hot city of Seville!

Thursday May 17th, 2007

We enjoyed the scenic train ride coming into Seville from Granada. It was neat to see the rolling hills, what we think was orange tree orchards and poppies scattered along the train tracks.

We arrived at 8pm and it was still 31 degrees!!

We finally arrived into Seville at about 8pm that evening. If you can believe it or not the temperature was a scorching 31 degrees!! It was hot! But if felt nice ( at least for me) to finally feel some warmth.

After finding our hostel and dropping off our bags we headed out in search of some dinner. Now usually in Spain dinner does not really start till about 8 or 9pm thus, Brandon and I figured we would not have a problem catching a bite to eat. However, Seville's football (soccer) team had apparently just won the Europe Cup. I guess it is quite a big deal as fans had poured into the streets, dressed in red, singing the Seville song and running around with Seville flags. It would be a celebration very comparable to Red Mile.

Unfortunately, Brandon and I were starving as we wandered around from restaurant to restaurant in search of food.  ( Because of the celebration, many restaurants were closed or they were only serving drinks.) We were very grateful to find a place that was open!

After dinner we headed for bed as we had an early and long day of sight seeing and travel.

Friday May 18th, 2007

Despite the fact that Brandon and I tried getting to bed earlier last night, we had a rough time getting up in the morning. The room was grossly hot (remember it was still about 30 degrees when we went to bed), and loud as we were next to the front entrance and reception.

Nonetheless, we got ourselves ready and headed out to explore this city.

Our first stop was to head back to the train station and pick up our tickets to Valencia for tomorrow.

Afterwards we came back to the area by our hostel and found a great, cheap place for lunch! It was a nice break as everything is a little pricey in Seville.

We then headed over to the Seville Cathedral. It apparently holds (or did hold) the Guiness Record for covering the largest area of any Cathedral. Despite the large amount of construction going on inside, we still found ourselves in awe of the intricate designs, patterns and architecture. We even stood infront of the supposed tomb of Christopher Colombus. I still need some clarification on that one because I thought I already saw his tomb in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic...

From there, we meandered our way through the streets and souvenir shops. It was another hot day today - about 36 degrees, so we didn't really have a choice but to go in and out of the shops as it was our only way of staying mildy cool in such heat.

Seville is a pretty neat city with its many gardens and countless purple leaved tress.

For dinner we found a cafe and ordered some Spanish omlettes. It looked more like a piece of a pie, but regardless, it was delicious!

Afterwards we headed over to the Palace and dipped our feet in the gorgeous fountain out front. It was a great way to cool down in the evening and very relaxing!

When we arrived back at the hostel, we were pleased with ourselves for figuring out that there actually was air conditioning in the rooms! All you had to do was put down a five dollar deposit to the front desk!

We enjoyed a much better sleep that night!