My daughter and I have just come back from five days in Seville – the primary intention was to be there to support a family friend who was running the Seville Marathon, but we managed to tack on a few days either side to make it a lovely looooooong weekend.
We both LOVED Seville. The flight is 2 hours 40 from Gatwick and they’ve stopped requesting passengers to take everything out of our bags (no more plastic bags! Whoop) so it was quick and easy. From the moment we landed and got driven to the hotel, by a splendidly enthusiastic local who sang the praises of his city with bells on, we loved every minute. He informed us the city was “beautiful” (he wasn’t wrong – focused on how clean it was), the food was “beautiful”, the weather was “beautiful”, but most importantly the people were “beautiful”. Seemingly, he felt, his people were set apart from the others who lived in Madrid or Barcelona (history, politics and crime rates being raised as key issues).
What’s now become a bit of a routine when travelling with my daughter is that she takes the reins in terms of getting us around and about and researching all the recommended hot spots in advance. Coincidentally she met some of the Seville rowing team in London a few weeks before who gave us some top tips. It works really well as I’m generally clueless with directions and happy to simply be led to another watering hole (and you can make me drink!), with long walks in between. I tend to be a few steps behind her these days, but try and keep up. I felt really happy just to be with her – things can change so quickly, so it’s just lovely to able to enjoy these moments of drinking, eating, walking, talking and laughing together whilst we can. I’d have love both my boys to have been there with us, but of course that would’ve cost another hotel room and anyway, I’m not sure they really want to hang out with their mum anymore. My daughter and I are really lucky to have that relationship where she doesn’t yet find me too annoying (or snorey) and I really cherish the fact that we can still create memories that will last a lifetime.
The city is small, so you can get to everything you want to see easily. We walked everywhere. There are trams and coach and horses (for the tourists) and Ubers and taxi’s, but because of the marathon, they were pretty hard to get hold of if you needed one. Our taxi driver informed us that “you can see everything in two days, but it will take three years to understand the history.”
The weather was glorious – a great time to remove ourselves from the grey skies of London. It’s going to have to be a bit of a photo dump as the pictures tell the story more effectively than I can. I’ll put a list of recommended things to do at the end.
From now until April/May seems to be the best time to go. It gets too hot after that (over 50 degrees in August apparently!). So interesting to see all the locals still wrapped up in coats and scarves – it was cool, but not cold and by lunchtime it had really warmed up to around 20 degrees C. I mean look at the colour of the sky!
The orange trees all around the city were bursting with life. Clearly the best time to see them before they’re harvested. They’re not edible apparently (toxic) until they’re turned mainly into Seville orange marmalade, which we all know and love:-
DAY 1
We did over 15K steps around the city. Earlier in the morning you can see the street cleaners spraying all the streets. It really is a clean and shiny city and you can still see the water on the cobble stones in this photo of my daughter outside the cathedral:-
Walking around the Plaza de Espana:-
We had a tapas lunch in Alfalfa – one of the recommended restaurants, followed by more walking and a small siesta.
Then we headed to a rooftop bar we’d heard about called the Atico Bar in a hotel which bizarrely is called the “Hotel Lobby” which was very cool (apparently the second best hotel in Seville after Hotel Alfonso Xiii). We probably arrived a little early as had three hours to wait until sunset, but the chilled music, the spicy martinis and the gin and tonics kept us going:-
We then had tapas at Bar Agustin, recommended by a friend which was delicious:-
Back to the hotel and bed after a long day!
DAY 2
We checked Zara out – the stores in Spain look so much better than the ones in the UK and walked for miles admiring the views and the trees.
We stopped for a refreshing shandy (bottles of Radner – delicious) near the mushroom structure – Metropol Parasol:-
We had lunch in the oldest Tapas bar in Spain – really wonderful – standing at the bar eating our small plates and drinking a small glass of wine. We wondered if eating standing up was better for your digestion – the Spanish seem to do a lot more standing than we do and they’re certainly slimmer in general:-
We took a walk along the river – also very pretty and then found another recommended rooftop bar to watch the sunset from – excellent views – not as cool as Atico but worth checking out as it’s right by the cathedral in the A.R.T’s Hotel:-
We then went to meet our friends for supper in a more upmarket restaurant near our hotel called El Traga.
DAY 3
Went bra shopping first with my daughter – depressing – remind me not to do that again.
We did a tour of the cathedral which was stunning:-
Then we were on a quest to find somewhere to watch the England Vs Scotland Rugby match. Not easy. We heard there was only one Irish bar showing the match so headed there – thankfully it was very close to our hotel, but we had to queue as they had a one in one out policy. Totally worth it for the atmosphere once we got in (and the exciting result!):-
We ate at another recommended tapas bar – from a lovely local guy we met at the pub – it was fabulous and wise advice to get there early as it filled up quickly:-
DAY 4
Day of the marathon! They have 8K runners instead of over 50K in London, so it’s very civilised and easy as a spectator to watch the runners in several different locations. I gather it’s a pretty good place to do the marathon as it wasn’t too hot and it’s flat. That said, there are cobbled streets so you have to concentrate and a grave error of judgement seemed to be that they were handing out small bottles of water to the runners. Lots were offering paper cups, which made sense, but the discarded water bottles became a real hazard and we met one poor girl after the event who broke her ankle on one of them:-
After the marathon and the successful runs from all the people we knew we made our way back to the hotel, cheering and clapping for the ones still running – it was a lovely atmosphere, although not as many cheers for the runners as we expected.
We found a lovely restaurant for the post marathon celebrations called El Pinto. The young ones went out afterwards, we boggled our way home:-
Gazpacho is one of their key local dishes – called something else, but delicious!
DAY 5
We got the last flight home in the evening so had a full day of more walking, sightseeing, shopping, eating and drinking:-
We went to see the Bull Ring – Plaza de Toros La Maestranza. Impressive. I had thought we were looking at history, but seemingly Spain and Portugal are the only two countries still putting on bull fighting and there was one coming up in April. The city is obviously very proud of their flamenco dancing (saw one but haven’t got the photos yet) and their Matadors, but obviously most of us find it a cruel sport.
The street entertainment was fun:
Pretty apartment block:-
Lunch at Bar Antiguedades – another recommended one – excellent:-
We also managed to get back to the Atico bar with our friends for one last gaze at the magnificent view and one last taste of the magnificent cocktails before getting in a cab to the airport (a less than 30 minute drive).
Best time ever. Highly recommended.
Here is my daughter’s list of recommendations:-
Things to do:
Plaza de espana – amazing building with river (free flamenco shows)
Seville cathedral – entry takes you up bell tower
Las setas – mushroom structure
Parque Maria Luisa
Torre del Oro (bull ring
Alcasa
Santa Cruz neighbourhood
Hotel Lobby – terrace
Drinks:
Atico rooftop bar
La terraza del eme
A.R.T bar
Iguana Terraza
Anthique
Torero
Restaurants
Worlds oldest tapas bar: El rinconcillo
Eslava
Malasana
El Sembrao
Bar Giralda
Lobo Lopez
Seis Taps Bar
Bar baratillo
Bar Antiguedades
