Germany and Beyond: Spain: Seville

Our trip to Seville started with an 8 hour overnight bus from Lisbon, which was about as uncomfortable as it sounds. Every single seat was taken and we were jammed into the back corner. Kate lost the plot about 20 minutes in and didn't have a happy trip. We arrived in Seville at 6am so we had some time to kill before we could go to our airbnb apartment. It didn't get light until 8am and the Spanish don't seem interested in getting up until about 11 so it was very quiet and hard to find anything open. After an age we found a coffee shop open then walked through town down to Plaza de Espana to catch the sunrise.

We then headed to our airbnb apartment which again was awesome. This one was just a short walk from the centre, had 3 bedrooms and cost about A$42 a night! After unloading our stuff we headed to the Cathedral which is apparently the biggest in the world when measured by interior volume. It was indeed big, and Christopher Columbus is buried there.

Many of the streets are lined with orange trees in Seville.

Then came the first round of tapas. Every day in Spain our diet consisted of coffee and croissant for breakfast, and tapas for lunch and dinner. To make sure we had all food groups covered we alternated between beer and sangria for drinks.

The next day we got up at the crack of 10am and still beat most Spaniards out the door. They seem to work from 11am til 1pm, then have siesta between 1 and 4, then go back to work for another few hours before hitting the tapas bars. I could get used to that. We headed to the Real Alcazar which is the palace that various Spanish and Moorish kings have used over the years. Like most of this area that was conquered by the Arabs centuries ago the architecture is very different to most other castles in Europe. Lots of mosaic tiles and geometric patterns.