Spain (Part 1)

I don't get away to foreign fields as much as I would like these days. It doesn't really appeal travelling alone and friends have busy schedules (or other friends they go away with), so I don't get much opportunity. Kay quite rightly goes away a lot with her long-term boyfriend. I keep plucking up courage to travel solo. Maybe one day. Meanwhile, when Kay suggested she had a spare week in July during which we could do something together, I leapt at the opportunity. 

I've never been to mainland Spain before. Greg and I visited a few of the Balearic islands in the past, but never ventured onto the mainland. I guess all those horrible visions of Torremelinos and Benidorm put me off and those who did venture there came back with squiffy tummies. However, a recent read of Victoria Hislop's The Return made me curious to see Granada and Seville and to learn more of the history. I knew very little about the Spanish Civil War and had been quite alarmed at what I had gleaned. So with laptop before me and ideas whizzing in my head, I booked Kay and me onto a flight to Seville, a hotel in Seville for three nights, a bus to Granada and hotel for four nights in Granada, as well as the fight back to London City Airport (a first as I had never flown in or out of there). The weather forecast was for very hot temperatures every day and I did question the wisdom of a July holiday sightseeing in a furnace, but your intrepid blogger decided to cast all concerns to one side and go for it.

Seville did not disappoint. I found it easy to manage all the sights within a  10 minute walk of our hotel (I had deliberately opted for a hotel slap bang in the centre of the Old Town traffic-free streets). The shops were sophisticated, the local women immaculately dressed, despite the heat, the tourists more shabbily dressed in comparison. The ice cream parlours and tapas bars provided welcome shade in the 35C - 38C heat, as did the churches and palaces. Here is a mere small fraction of the photos  I took whilst there. More to come on Granada in another post...

Our hotel in Seville - Moorish style

Alcazar Palace

Alcazar Palace- beautiful ceilings

Alcazar interior -  intricate patterns

Alcazar interior - stunning walls and ceilings

Alcazar interior - stunning walls and ceilings

Alcazar interior - beautiful with every turn

Alcazar interior - stunning courtyards

Alcazar interior - even the doors are not plain

Alcazar interior - it gets better

Alcazar inmate

Alcazar  grounds

Alcazar  grounds

Shops with a difference

Public transport

Cathedral

Cathedral

Cathedral

Cathedral -tomb of Christopher Colombus

Cathedral

Cathedral

Plaza de Espana

Plaza de Espana

Plaza de Espana

San Salvador

San Salvador

Santa Ana, Triana

Statue of Juan Belmonte - famous bullfighter

No comment