What a beautiful city! Seville was a surprise, as, once again, we didn't know anything about it. We drove into the city with me as navigator (never a good idea) and Jim somehow miraculously found our hotel by using his sense of direction. Not having a sense of direction, I am constantly astounded by this ability to know the general direction in which to point the car in an effort to reach our destination.
I loved Madrid, but I felt that Seville had more of a laid back and happy vibe. The buildings really reminded us of New Orleans and the streets were lined with trees full of oranges. Our hotel was in the historic area, where people were out and about, eating and laughing until at least 12:30 or 1:00 in the morning, no matter what the day. Our room looked out over a fried fish restaurant, where people sat out on the street and ate:
The view down the street:
Jim in the park near our hotel:
On the street where I'll be taking Spanish lessons (also conveniently filled with many excellent tapas bars and restaurants):
Jim perched on a wall:
Looking sultry by the river:
Looking normal by the river:
Guys playing some really hard looking game in boats in the river:
And the river itself, along which we walked and across which we went:
On our second day in Seville, we walked through the Park (which wasn't as trimmed and perfect looking as the park in Madrid). Throughout our walk, there were many opportunities for pictures series. The Jim reading a paper series:
Jim sticks his head in things:
He really didn't wan to stick his head in the tree, but I insisted. There were spiderwebs.
And the Jim Climbs Trees series:
It was sunny and warm in Seville and there were incredible musicians playing everywhere:
Some other pictures from out and about:
These two guys were carrying an ornate gold decoration from a church to some other space. Unfortunately, it took us so long to get the camera out, that we only got the back part of it.
I tried a Seville orange. Not so edible (which probably explains why they are lying all over the place:
We spent some time in a really cool tapas bar in Plaza de Alfalfa, where there were two parakeets hanging out on top of the wine rack (our theory is that they escaped from the bird shop across the street and were hunkering down in the bar before they found something better to do)
We wandered across the river in search of a music club (closed) and stumbled on this great outdoor fish place, where they wrote our order in chalk on the counter. The weather was great and the atmosphere was fun!
When we headed back to our hotel, we walked past the gothic cathedral, where there were many, many bats flying around.
Jim had the right idea:
And then the best bat of all showed up!
Seville was WONDERFUL. We were sad to leave, but at least next we were headed to the beach!
