Seville, Spain

After two great days in Barcelona, we left for Seville bright and early Tuesday morning. When I say bright and early, I really just mean early -- we had a 7:10am flight so the sun wasn't even close to up when we started our venture to the airport. After taking the metro to catch a bus which took us to the airport, we arrived to see an extremely LONG line at check-in. We were very concerned we were going to miss our flight. I spotted some electronic ticket kiosks that for some reason no one was using, so Brian got in the long line and I went to investigate the kiosk. (At this point I totally felt like I was on the Amazing Race, trying to get our tickets before the other team. It was semi-fun, I'm not going to lie!)

Anyway -- thankfully I was able to navigate the kiosk and was able to get our boarding passes. We finally made it through security just in time ... only to stand around for awhile because our flight was slightly delayed (but not listed as so on the board). Don't you love when that happens?

We finally made it to Seville around 9:00am and took the public bus to our hotel (Silken Al-Andalus). The bus isn't very tourist-friendly. They don't like to tell you what stop you're approaching or where you are, so you just have to keep looking out the window, trying to find a similar street on your map and hope for the best. Luckily we asked the bus driver when we got on (in our broken Spanish) if he went to the hotel and he said yes so he let us know when it was the right stop (thank you nice bus driver)!

The hotel was nice -- it was really big with several restaurants, a piano bar, gift shop, etc. The only problem was it was about a 10 minute bus ride into the center of town (which often turned into a 20+ minute ride because of traffic). A cab to and from was anywhere between 6 and 10 euro which we had to take a couple of times when we were out after 11pm (the time the bus stopped running). That simple fact was interesting to us because people don't get to dinner until around 10pm. But then restaurants close at midnight. So basically you have a two hour window to get dinner and you're out of luck if you don't finish and hop on the bus before 11pm. We never quite got the schedule down, but it was sure fun trying! (This was different then Barcelona though. The restaurants closed later than midnight. We know this because we were trying to do as the Spaniards and went to dinner around 10:30pm. When we were finishing up, people were just coming in and starting to order at midnight -- craziness!)

So basically, it seemed like a fairly big production to get to and from town, especially considering the aforementioned. So while the hotel was pretty nice, I would recommend staying closer to the city center for convenience sake.

We started our Seville experience in the city center near Barrio de Santa Cruz which is a really neat area. We then wondered around checking out the sites. We stumbled upon the Alcazar palace which was really neat with a lot to see.

Later that evening we went to Aire de Sevilla, an Arabic bathhouse. This was a very cool experience. It's a "journey through three baths in different rooms at different temperatures" over a 1.5 hour time period. There's a really hot bath, a warm one and a really cold one. The bathhouse also included a hamman, a salt bath, a hydro-massage bath and a relaxation room. After the "bath" experience I got a massage as well. The whole experience was fantastic and extremely relaxing. However, not much English was spoken so there was a lot of hand gestures and confused looks trying to figure where to go and what to do next. But that was part of the fun!

After our incredibly relaxing bathhouse experience, we went for dinner at a great restaurant on one of the main roads (Mateos Gago). This was actually one of my favorite meals -- we had several tapas which were all amazing.

I tried to capture the cool atmosphere with this video, but it didn't quite work. None-the-less, here it is anyway.

The next day was our actual anniversary and that's when we took the day trip to Granada to see the Alhambra Palace. I'll save that for the next blog post though!

Our last day in Seville we checked out the Seville Cathedral where Christopher Columbus's tomb is. It was a beautiful cathedral and certainly worth checking out. You can also walk up (30+ levels) to get to the top of the bell tower. Although my calves were burning by the end, it was definitely worth the walk -- it was beautiful up top with great views of the city.

Here's a video from the top of the bell tower.

While we were inside I caught an artist at work which I thought was pretty cool.

After, we stopped in Flaherty Irish Pub for a pint of Guinness. I read about this place before our trip and it promised a great mix of locals and tourists and a great pint of Guinness. These claims were also backed up by my fellow Guinness connoisseur Elizabeth who has been to this pub before. Well, it certainly lived up to its reputation. It was a cool atmosphere and a great beer. It was a nice spot to take a break.

We then ventured down by Rio Guadalquivir (the second longest river in Spain) where Plaza de Toros, the oldest bullring in Spain is.

Just on the other side of the river is the Triana neighborhood; a really neat area with several great restaurant options. We ate at El Faro de Triana per a recommendation from Rick Steves. The restaurant is actually an old yellow bridge tower overlooking the Isabel II Bridge. We had hoped to utilize their outdoor seating, but the weather didn't cooperate so we had to sit inside. However, our waiter, Juan Pedro (now my Facebook friend) sat us at a table with a great view and opened the window so we got the outdoor "experience". Brian enjoyed the food more than I did. I don't think it was a matter of the restaurant's food, but more so my tastes not jiving with the local cuisine. We had great conversation with our waiter Juan and made a new friend! He practiced his English on us and we practiced our Spanish on him. By the end of the night we invited him to visit us in Florida!

We really enjoyed our time in Seville. It's definitely a smaller city with a laid back, quaint atmosphere, but with a lot of neat things to see. We had originally thought about doing a hop-on, hop-off bus here as well, but everything was pretty close together (everything we wanted to see anyway) so it wasn't necessary. This was my second favorite city and it battles Barcelona for Brian's most favorite city.

You can see more pictures from Seville here.

Next on the blog agenda -- Granada, Spain / Alhambra!

Barcelona, Spain

We started our third wedding anniversary trip in Barcelona. As I mentioned in my last post, we left Jacksonville, Florida around noon on Saturday and arrived in Barcelona at 8:30am on Sunday so we just kept going.

We stayed at Apsis Aranea (pretty decent hotel in a nice area and convenient to the metro station) which was really close to the La Sagrada Familia, so after we checked in the hotel we grabbed our first bite to eat near there. We actually went to the La Sagrada Familia several times (as you might be able to tell from the pictures), each time with the intention of going inside, but that never happened. Each time we went the line was extremely long and since we only had a short time in Barcelona (2 days) we wanted to make sure we saw as much as possible.

Our first day in Barcelona was absolutely beautiful! It was a gorgeous day with lots of sunshine, minimal clouds, and a nice temperature. After checking out La Sagrada Familia, we took the metro to the area around La Rambla Street. We walked down La Rambla Street to Port Vell. La Rambla Street was really neat with a lot of cool things to see. It's an extremely touristy area with street performers and tons of stands with various items to purchase, but probably overpriced. I would recommend just enjoying the street and waiting until you're in a different area to purchase souvenirs. I recommend checking out Mercat La Boqueria while you're on La Rambla; it's a really cool food market. (It's closed on Sundays though so we had to go back the next day.)

The Port area is really cool. When we first arrived there were lots of people dancing in the streets to American music just having a great time. We caught a jazz cruise on the Orsom which was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was a 1.5 hour trip for 14 or so euro and well worth it. There are other boat trip options but this one was great because it was smaller than the others and less "touristy". We were able to lay on the front of the boat and just relax while taking in Barcelona from the water. I highly recommend this cruise.

After the cruise we checked out the Picasso Museum (which is free after 3PM on Sunday's). This is certainly a must-see if you're in Barcelona.

Since we were only in Barcelona for two days, we figured a great way to see a lot of the city in a short amount of time was to do a sightseeing tour on a hop-on, hop-off bus. There are a couple of different options but we went with Barcelona Bus Turistic and had a great experience. It's well worth the 22 euro. We used it to go around the city and stop at places / areas that were of interest to us.

One stop we're glad we made was at the Parc Güell; a park by the famous architect Antonio Gaudi. It was very cool to see and offers great views of the city from the top. There are also local musicians playing throughout the park which definitely adds to the experience. One of my only regrets from the trip is not buying the CD of a local guitarist playing there. I figured we'd have other opportunities throughout our trip, but we didn't. Oh well, maybe next time! Since pictures don't do cool sites like this justice, here's a quick video at the park:




Another cool stop was the Museo Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC); it also has great views of the city. It's close to the Montjuïc area (where a lot of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games venues are). This is definitely worth checking out as well.

Another cool area is the Barri Gotic Quarter (Gothic Quarter).

Overall Barcelona was my favorite city. I really could have spent the entire week there and been happy. Like I previously mentioned, it would have been better if we were there when it was warmer and could have taken advantage of the beach, but overall we had a fantastic time and I would highly recommend a visit to Barcelona.

Here is a link to all of our pictures from Barcelona if you're interested in seeing more. Next post on the agenda -- Seville, Spain!