Today we conquered Seville (Sevilla as the Spanish say). We have always been told it is SO beautiful here, and it is, but not exactly what we were picturing. We didn´t do any research so we were totally unaware that this was the 4th largest city in Spain. It is almost a combination of San Sebastian and Madrid with a much older and more rustic feel. Lots of plazas and no city grid and unbelievable architecture. In the middle of the city runs a huge river and the views from the bridge are so pretty.
We stomped all over this city today setting off at 11am with a spunky girl from Louisville that we met at our hostel. First stop (after standing on countless street corners staring at our map and searching for one of the elusive street signs here before being directed by a kind older local man) the cathedral, which was so enormous and SO ornamented from the top of every pillar and archway down to the floor. It is by far the most insane, enormous and elaborate cathedral that we have ever been in, words can´t describe...well maybe if we wrote a lot more of them they could but we don´t feel like it right now.
There are orange trees and horse and buggies everywhere here on cobblestone roads and family filled plazas. Nothing like the huge plazas in Madrid, these are smaller and more frequent, essentially just squares amongst the winding backstreets.
This city has such a mix of old and new. Huge highways meet unmarked streets where the high crowded colorful buildings are strewn with balconies. We found an awesome tapas bar for a montallio for lunch (a mini sandwich). We crossed the river and went to a beautiful park which meets the Plaza of Spain. The Plaza of Spain is ENORMOUS! A beautiful building curving around a huge huge plaza lined with a little bridged stream. Along the walls is a mural to each city in Spain, all in shiny colorful tiles. It is a spectacular sight and they were having some kind of police ceremony when we went to there were lines of policemen in the center of it all. We swang on some swings and chatted about life and how amazing it is that we still have things to talk about all day every day...no really, we do, we like each other that much! Which is lucky as we are pretty much stuck together at this point haha. We did lots and lots more walking but I think we are a little citied out to be honest. We have done so much stomping and so much sightseeing and socializing, we are both in need of a little mental break from the sights. Hopefully we will find that tomorrow.
We went to a bull ring but decided it wasn´t worth the tour...we could picture what a sandy arena looked like, I mean we went to UT, this ancient bull ring could hardly be more epic than packed Neyland on a Rocky Top game day. It was cool to see the building of the oldest bull fighting ring in Spain, and even cooler to use their bathroom as thats what we were both in need of at the time.
We found a fruit vendor and picked up some strawberries and grapes for an afternoon snack and walked and walked until we returned to our hostel at 7:30 that night, much later than we had anticipated as we left our hostel at 11:30am that morning. Our sore legs reminded us that we hadn´t done much sitting that day and we laughed about all of the couch potato days that seem worlds away.
When we got home we headed up to the rooftop terrace of our hostel, appropriately named Oasis. The chef was making paella, a traditional Spanish dish of rice, meat, vegetables and seafood. We decided that this particular version looked not too heavy on the seafood and would make a great evening feast. It always sounds like we are eating a lot on our blog but it really doesn´t feel that way...I guess all the walking can make a girl hungry. We met some more girls (this is the first hostel we have been to that seems to be overrun with women, boys are the minority it seems). We attempted travel research for quite a while, not very successfully as neither of us were sure what we were looking for. No nightlife for us this evening, sleep was on both of our minds. I think we were both a little on the spacy side today to say the least. We are still digging Spain, its vibe, people, architecture, climate, views, food....etc. It is an awesome place and we are excited for tomorrow´s awesome adventure.
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