Beautiful Seville

Seville, Spain, Saturday 8 October

A day of laziness in Seville is just what I need. We have been on the move constantly and this is the only day for the next 8 days that can possibly be a day off. I take it. The plan is no tours and no tour guides. A little sleep-in is entirely ruined with a 6.30 wake up call. Ooops wrong room. I go back to sleep and then wake up with a start when I realise that I hadn’t changed the time (we lost an hour)on my alarm when we crossed the border back into Spain. It is 8.30 I am meeting people at 9.30. But it turns out we all slept in. More than anything this is a sign of the pace we are travelling at.

We head out and explore the Plaza de Espana. This is a huge park like area that was established entirely for the 1929 Exhibition (or was it 1927…the dates are starting to run into each other a little now). Each country seems to have built a palace on their allotted land and then created beautiful gardens to boot. The legacy is several venues of nationalistic buildings made to fit with a Sevilla backdrop. Having said that the Spanish Pavilion is by far the most special. It is a mix of traditional brick palace and Portuguese tiling around the doorways, windows and in little decorative pieces. There is room for a moat but it is empty today. All focus is on the large fountain in front of the pavilion.

Dozens of horse and carriages trot around the Palace with tourists on board to explore the parks comfortably. It looks very shady and relaxing and so we decide what the heck and pay up. A very pleasant clippity clop around the park in blue sky 30 degrees makes the bus, the luggage and the early mornings seems far far way.

Energised we walk into the city through the orange tree lined main streets and the beautiful old buildings and wander the shops and markets for the next few hours. This enables some much needed retail therapy and the restorative benefit of air conditioning which as the temperature hits 33 degrees seems a very sensible place to be.