This morning, we had to pack up our burgeoning ‘stuff’ and move on again. We were going to try taking the local minibus to the Estación De Autobuses with the only disincentive being all the stairs down to the bus stop. When Paco offered to book a taxi for us, we decided … yeah, let’s do the easy option and Paco booked us a taxi for 10.00am.
The taxi was able to come almost to the front door and at least there were no steps between the apartment and where the taxi had pulled up. All we had to negotiate was the BIGGEST doggy bomb ever right in the middle of the footpath. People are gross not picking up after their dogs!
We were at the bus station by 10.15am for our 11.00am non-stop bus ride from Granada to Sevilla (pronounced See-vee-ya). That left us with plenty of time to check which bay our bus would be leaving from, do some admin on Facebook and WhatsApp and use the facilities in preparation for our three-hour trip to Sevilla. The toilets were reasonable for a bus station, and I was lucky enough to be able to use the last few sheets of toilet paper rather than break into my emergency stash.
Our bus pulled in about 20 minutes ahead of departure time. We queued to wait to put our luggage under the bus. Not the driver’s job to help with that apparently. Everyone had to stow their own suitcases. Then we had to queue again waiting to be let onto the bus. We weren’t concerned that we were well back in the queue because we were in possession of tickets that said we had seats 10 and 11 booked and there was a note on the ticket saying ‘Stay in your allocated seat. Changing seats is not permitted’
What is wrong with people? We arrive at seats 10 and 11 and there are people sitting in them!! We also discovered that seats 10 and 11 are each side of the aisle. We stood over the occupants and pointed to the seat numbers on our tickets. The guy in Bernie’s seat apologized and vacated immediately. The woman in my seat really wanted to sit in the aisle seat not the window seat, but I just waved her over to the window. You want an aisle seat lady; you book an aisle seat!
Anyhow while waiting for everyone to finish coming aboard, I got to thinking that everyone would be happy if she moved to Bernie’s seat, I scooched over to the window and Bernie moved to my seat. I asked if she spoke English. Nope. However, with some pointing at Bernie and her I got the message across, and she couldn’t move quickly enough. She was delighted to move to Bernie’s aisle seat, and we were happy to sit together rather than across the aisle from each other. Win, win! Even though we were breaking one of the rules of carriage.
Our bus left on time at 11.00am and we enjoyed an entirely uneventful journey between Granada and Sevilla. What did we see (when we were actually awake and looking out the window)? Olives, olives, olives … so many olive tree orchards. A few mountains, hay being made and some fields growing something that didn’t look like wheat, barley maybe? A HUGE car wrecker’s yard, a cement works and several fields of sunflowers.
We arrived on time in Sevilla at 2.00pm. We retrieved our suitcases from under the bus and dragged them up to the concourse. We decided it was easiest to eat at the bus station cafeteria rather than find a café with our luggage in tow. Two ham and cheese toasties did the trick. As we ate, we debated taking a taxi to our apartment or attempting to walk the 600 metres dragging our cases. Hmmn, depends on the cobblestone situation, doesn’t it? If the path is smooth between the station and the apartment we can walk. If not, we risk pissing off a taxi driver with a short fare?!
In the end the path looked smooth outside the station, so we decided to walk. That was going well until we crossed the road at the traffic lights and found ourselves on a median strip with the biggest, roughest pavers with spaces between them just the right size for snagging the wheels on suitcases!! Aaargh. We persevered and thankfully we found the path (relatively) smooth again by the time we reached the other side of the road.
We reached the street that the apartment is in and entered a construction zone. OMG! The entire road is dug up and there is temporary fencing along the sides reducing the already narrow footpath to barely wide enough for us and our cases. It was very difficult to negotiate our way past oncoming pedestrians. Then Syri and Bernie got confused with Bernie taking us over the trench on a ramp to what turned out to be the WRONG SIDE OF THE STREET. We had to retrace our steps to cross the ramp to the other side of the trench.
Finally, we arrived at the gated entrance to No.12. This was a new access procedure. Bernie had to press the button for the apartment, that activated a red button and a green button on his phone. He pressed the green/unlock button and, hallelujah, we were inside the gate. So, it’s a ground floor apartment but there were still eight steps up to the courtyard where our apartment is located. At the door we had to use yet another code to enter the apartment which you step down into. Here we were thinking a ground floor apartment was going to be easy, ha, ha.
We got ourselves settled in then headed out to the local Carrefour Express for breakfast supplies. Ooh, today I was the truffle pig clocking the gelato shop just along the street from our apartment. Yum, we’ll save that for on our way back from the mini mart. The fruit selection in the Carrefour was disappointing so we decided to see if we could find an actual fruit shop. AFTER we had purchased fruit at the Carrefour Express on Friday afternoon we saw a much nicer fruit shop on Saturday. We didn’t want to make the same mistake again and decided, worst case scenario we could return to the mini mart before 10.00pm tonight.
With water, coke and fruit juice purchased we plunged back into the construction zone a cacophony of diesel generator and concrete sawing. I’m sure they won’t be at it 24/7?! We called a halt at Gloria & Rositas – Casa de Helados where we were both able to purchase our favourite flavours of gelato that is made in house. We asked the girl who served us about the construction works and she told us they started FIVE MONTHS ago. That puts it in perspective. It might inconvenience us a little bit over the next three nights/two days BUT imagine living here or running a business here. Besides is it worth staying in a construction zone to have gelato practically on our doorstep? Absolutely!
With our groceries stowed in the fridge we slung our cameras over our shoulders and headed out to the Hospital Los Venerables. Bernie has pre-purchased tickets for the Real Alcazar (tomorrow) and the Catedral (Wednesday) but we were winging it for this venue. We arrived to find no queue at all at the ticket box, so we paid €12.00 each, picked up our audio guides and entered the building’s glorious Sevilla courtyard that features a stepped central fountain and Tuscan arches on marble columns.
The hospital was founded by Canon Justino de Neve in 1675 to be the residence of the venerable priests, basically priests who were elderly, sick, disabled or dying. The Brotherhood of Silence in Sevilla had run such a shelter since 1627 in a rented house but in 1673 decided to build a new shelter. The baroque style building was completed between 1675 and 1697 by architects Juan Dominguez and Leonardo de Figueroa. A church was added in 1689 and dedicated to San Fernando. Yet another surprising church. You enter via an unassuming door in one corner of the courtyard to be admitted to a large, highly decorated space that you just couldn’t imagine fitting in behind the door.
After completing our visit to the hospital, we wandered for a bit through the charming streets of Sevilla. We passed close by to both the Alcazar and the Catedral that we will visit during our stay here. There are so many young people around. With universities in the northern hemisphere finished for the summer we are guessing that it’s a multicultural mix of 20-something travellers on their Europe adventures. We imagine it’s just going to get busier and more crowded the further into June we get.
At dinner time we went to Restaurante Las Piletas a restaurant serving traditional Andalusian food. We arrived at 7.50pm. Oops, too early we don’t start table service until 8.00pm. The restaurant also lacked the vibe of last night’s restaurant, and I cracked it. I hate being made to feel stupid and being told at ten to eight that you’re too early. FFS it’s ten minutes, give us a seat and then just make us wait ten minutes before you come to serve us. I’d feel less stupid sitting at a table being ignored for ten minutes than being turned away at the door because we’re too early.
We left. Bernie cracked it because I didn’t like his restaurant suggestion. He’d researched it on Google, and it rated 4.8 therefore definitely worth a try in his opinion. When we both cooled off it had gone 8.00pm and we hadn’t found anywhere else to eat so we returned to the restaurant and this time we were shown to a table. We ordered an ox-tail stew and some grilled pork. We shared them half and half and both were delicious. The food was good, but the staff were rubbish.
We walked back to the apartment to pick up Bernie’s camera and headed out again for sunset at Metropol Parasol. I thought that we were going to take photos of the parasol things that light up after dark not realising that it is also a mirador or viewpoint with views over the city. And it’s ticketed and it’s really popular. We joined the queue in the basement for tickets but then Bernie checked out the tickets online and discovered that it was sold out until after 10.00pm. Oops, a lack of planning on this activity. Let’s try again tomorrow night and pre-purchase our tickets online.
Returning to the plaza we could see people on top of a building opposite. This led us to the rooftop bar at abba Sevilla Hotel where for the price of a couple of drinks we could enjoy an elevated sunset anyway overlooking the Catedral and Iglesia Colegial del Divino Salvador. Very nice as the blue hour descended over the Sevilla skyline.
Steps: 14,309 (8.92kms)