Sevilla

We decided to take a fast, flash train between Barcelona and Seville with Spain's national train company, Renfe. It was our first experience of train travel in Spain; there was an airport-like lounge, with eateries with airport-like prices, and you have to go in a line to get your ticket checked, then through security to get all your bags scanned before boarding. The train was the flashest we'd been on thus far, too; it had a power socket, we were supplied with complimentary headphones, and we rocketed along at speeds of up to 300kph on our journey to our stopover in Madrid.

Unfortunately, that still wasn't fast enough. We arrived in Madrid at our scheduled time, and had 15 minutes to catch our train to Seville. We've made other connections without any problem, but we hadn't counted on the massive airport-like terminal that is Madrid's train station. Up a long travelator we went, before hurrying down a looong hall over the tracks, into the main area, then after a wrong turn we were told that our platform (unsignposted) was on the first floor. We only had a few minutes to get there by this point, and we clumsily and apologetically hurried past all the people with their baggage on the travelator up, raced through security, and came up to the gate just after our train had pulled away.

It was fairly distressing. We went to one Renfe counter, where the lady indicated we should go downstairs to the ticket office. Instead, John took us to another Renfe counter nearby, and asked for help with our missed connection. Initially they also told us to go downstairs to buy a new ticket, but then John's assertiveness showed up, and he let it be known that it was the fault of whatever system had given us such a measly stopover time to get between platforms, rather than our own negligence in missing our train (I'm not sure he conveyed that FULL meaning of that to these Spaniards... but enough of it). “Just a moment,” she said, and then all the people in the office space behind the counter, maybe half a dozen, started conversing in Spanish back and forth, and then she called someone and was on the phone for a little while; finally she wrote on our ticket, and then gave it back to us with a new time, coach and seat numbers on it, for two hours later. Hurrah!

We made sure to be on the next train in plenty of time, and from there to Seville our journey was pleasantly uneventful.

a view of Seville

We had been primed to expect a big difference between Barcelona and Andalucia. They were right! It was immediately noticeable once we arrived in Seville; it was hotter, with fewer people who spoke English, and a very different style of city. Our Airbnb hostess described it as a “big village”, and it felt that way – a big, charming village, with narrow, winding streets I would hate to drive down, more pedestrians than cars, and awesome houses. Our own house had three stories, with our floor on the second, a big lightwell in the centre and a flat shaded roof you could sit and relax on. We had only booked one bedroom with a bathroom but, as it happened, we were the only guests there, so had the whole place to ourselves!

On our way to our accommodation we passed a big group of people dressed fancily; our hostess mentioned how all the women dress up heaps for weddings here, and indeed, the women all looked like they could have been bridesmaids, their dresses were so beautiful. If we were in the US, I would have suspected that might actually be the case.

Plaza de la Encarnacion with a big confounding wooden structure

On our first full day in Seville, we had a leisurely stroll through the centre of town, seeing the Plaza de la Encarnacion and some market stalls on our way to see the cathedral, a major attraction. We were appropriately impressed; it is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, built on the foundation of the old mosque, and it took us a few hours to get round it with our audioguides. The cathedral also contains la Giralda, a former minaret turned into a bell tower.

the Cathedral

 Although not normally a fan of statues of Mary, I liked this one - she looks so pretty! Love the bodiless heads at her feet too.

insane golden altarpiece

the orange grove outside, a legacy from its days as a mosque

Our hostess had recommended we see Plaza de Espana, a free square, we presumed. We checked it out, and discovered that “square” is not really an adequate summation; it's more like a lovely open area, half encircled by a long, fancy building, and adorned with fountains, bridges and pretty lamps and fences.

Not just a square!

Far more exciting!

We ended the day with a lovely walk through the adjoining Parque de Maria Luisa, a big, tropical park with various fountains, flowers and garden areas. It had more trees than we're used to in an urban park, so it felt more like a forest much of the time. We could understand the sense in it, given the temperatures southern Spain can get up to.

The next day, we started with a long visit to the Alcazar, the other main draw in Seville – again, justly so. The royal residence was unlike anything we'd seen before; the fusion of different artistic styles and influences was beautiful and fascinating, perhaps in part because it was unfamiliar. The building had quite a few courtyards with little gardens, which were designed to be smaller and more intimate, and achieved their aim well.

Amazing ceiling, the amazingness of which cannot be captured on camera.

highly ornate decoration

extremely incredibly very highly ornate decoration

Faced with ludicrously expensive audioguides, we also started our new technique of hiring just one and sharing it between us. Absolutely brilliant idea – we bet no one else has ever thought of doing that.

The gardens were just as lovely as the palace; large and disparate, they had evolved over a long period of time, with different areas planted in different eras. There was a labyrinth, a rose garden, several fountains and pools of water, with water running down channels in some of the paths. A special feature was a musical fountain – different from the one in Barcelona; apparently the last working one in Spain? This one used some sort of mechanism to play a pipe organ,which tooted away happily to itself playing an unfamiliar tune with slightly off notes and timing. It's an engineering marvel to be sure, although I'm sure there's a more efficient way to create music.

just a path in the Alcazar gardens

Water played a prominent part in the garden's design, so there were lots of murky, stagnant bodies of water lying around.

a building for hanging out purposes in the gardens

Like the park from the day before, the gardens also had a good number of shady trees and tropical foliage, making the Alcazar a good place to spend a hot day – it was probably about 30 degrees. And this is Spain in autumn? We're really glad we took the warning about European summers, and headed north during the warmer months before venturing down south.

It was still too hot for our next two expeditions, neither of which met with success. First we tried to find the Inquisition Museum, and failed; next we tried to make it to the bullring by 6 o'clock for one of the free half-hourly tours, which turned into a power walk after taking a wrong turn.

At least we got to see this tower.

As it turns out, it didn't matter, because all the free tickets, valid between 3-7pm on Mondays, had been sold out on or shortly after 3pm that day; apparently you couldn't just turn up at one of the times in the free time period. Naive fools! There were paying tickets available for later in the evening, but that would conflict with our next appointment, which was...

A flamenco show! We decided it would be a great idea to experience some authentic Spanish culture by attending an authentic flamenco performance. Our hostess had recommended la Casa de la Memoria, House of Memory, as a more affordable and less touristy option than many other offers. In any case, it was still all tourists in the audience. That audience was limited to 80 members, however, as flamenco is apparently meant to be performed in a more intimate setting.

There were two dancers, male and female, who took a lengthy turn each, as well as a mean guitarist (mean as in rad), and a male singer. The guitar was absolutely lovely – and then the singer started doing his thing. Man, we weren't feeling it. We've seen buskers flamencoing it up since then, as well as heard similar singing in shops around Andalucia, so we've gathered that the way this singer was doing it was indeed the way it was meant to sound, but unfortunately it wasn't to either of our tastes. It mainly sounded nasally, and more like semi-melodious wailing than the singing we're used to; it was clearly a song about heartbreak, and it definitely sounded like the singer was voicing a complaint.

As for the dancers, they were fairly throbbing with feeling; they seemed to feel the music deep inside, and to have a deep well of pain that compelled them to move. We'd seen some reviews for this place where they mentioned the dancers' passion, and we saw what they were talking about. It looked like the lady, especially, was engaged in a complex interplay with the guitarist and singer sitting off to the side, like a conversation through music and dance. The dancers seemed to direct the speed of the music by tapping their feet, and I found it hard to tell how much was rehearsed vs improvised, it all seemed so organic. We would be remiss not to mention the skill involved in their rapid footwork, too; their feet were flying so fast, yet still in time with the beat. The only downside and distraction was the male dancer's gross oily hair that hung down to his shoulders; the lady had tied hers back in a ponytail, but he just let it hang loose and it went over his face and looked gross.

From left to right: Mr Greasy Hair dancer, singer, lady dancer and guitar player. At least two of those should have been pretty obvious.

The guitar player also performed a delicate solo item about halfway through, which was beautiful, and which we would have appreciated more if there hadn't been an elderly gentleman a few seats down from us who didn't seem to realise how loud his sotte voce comments were.

All in all, we appreciated the performance, were impressed with the talent on display, and the audience was certainly happy, giving them rousing applause at the end.

We rounded off our sevillian visit with a first experience of tapas, at a restaurant – you guessed it! – recommended by our hostess. She gave us many helpful suggestions. This place was called Coloniales, and we would also highly recommend it to anyone planning to visit Seville. We were warned it is always full, so made sure to arrive before the normal dinner time, which is 9-11pm. Yes, that's right, and lunch is normally 2-4pm. Not so hard to arrive beforehand!

We were given free entrees, some little packets of dried bread, as well as a fresh bun. Then we quickly chose 4 tapas, as well as a lemonade each. The little meals came really quickly, were delicious, and we went from feeling ravenous to feeling satisfied, but not over-full. And the whole meal cost a mere 13 euros for both of us! What a pleasure!

We left Seville glad we had decided to extend our trip to include Spain as well. It was proving most rewarding!