Oh the noise!

Now that is, tostados con jamón serrano y salmorejo!

Yesterday evening involved a somewhat more gentle stroll back into town to the bar that I had identified earlier. Upon arrival all did not appear well as the place was, to put it mildly, heaving and it looked like we would not get a table. Captain Clarke, however, went and spoke to a waiter and we were invited inside to wait. The waiter then spent the next 10 minutes ignoring us which began to give rise to the thought that we had been forgotten. No such thing – eventually, another waiter arrived and we were ushered to a small table. I, of course, already knew what I wanted to eat – ‘tostados con jamón Serrano y salmorejo’ but others did need to make decisions, so menus were taken and perused. Captain Clarke ordered a delicious (if you like that sort of thing) dish of ‘solomillo con salsa de almendras’ (fillet steak with an almond sauce) which turned out to be veal, but was apparently excellent. Gorgious ordered ‘tomates aliñado’ (dressed tomatoes) and ‘jamón surgencia’ (a platter of cold meats and cheese), ‘S’ ordered ‘pincho de pollo con salsa curry’ (chicken kebab in a curry sauce), calamaris (squid should need no explanation!), which all turned out to be far too much food, we managed to eat it all.

Not a great photo, but we’re having a good time.

Our evening meal was washed down with a couple of bottles of local rosé wine (‘S’ had red wine which was excellent too) and then we commenced a gentle stroll back to our hotel. We should explain at this point that the old town of Seville is very different to the main part which is somewhat newer. The old town is a maze of very narrow streets that all look alike and are all cobbled. Beautiful though this is, it does make navigation somewhat difficult. We had been tending to use our phones and ‘Apple Maps’ to guide us back to our hotel, but because of the narrow streets, signal is often lost and so is our route. Add to this the parades that seem to go on all day and all evening which cause many streets to be closed off and to be packed with visitors, we have, on more than one occasion, found ourselves to be not entirely sure of our route and walking back past somewhere that we are sure we have already walked past. This happened on our walk back to the hotel yesterday evening, which added to our, already ridiculous, amount of walking in one day. When we finally reached the hotel yesterday evening, we had walked an utterly stupid and unbelievable 12.3 miles in one day!

Bar La Sacristia where we had our evening meal. We will revisit for more delicious food!

Now, if there is one thing that all travellers to Spain should know, it is that the Spanish can be noisy! Having arrived back at our hotel at about midnight, I had expected the noise to abate fairly soon. Absolutely not! We retired and I lay awake waiting for the noise to cease. At exactly 3.33am (I took note from my watch) it did! The noise, until this point was horrendous – drums banging, bands playing, people shouting and all appeared to be taking place directly outside our hotel window (which was, of course, not the case!). And so, at 3.33am I finally prepared for sleep. There was to be none of that. At 3.45am, all of the local bar owners clearly decided it was a good time to empty their bins. As many will know there are large ‘dumper’ type communal bins in Spain which can be very noisy when being filled. ‘Aha’, though I, thank goodness that is over – now for some sleep. Nope! At 4.10am the local bin men clearly decided to come and empty the bins in the street. Not only did they do this, but they also decided to reverse up to every bin with the inevitable beep, beep, beep that goes with it. After they finally left the area at 4.30am I really did think that sleep would be coming, but not a bit of it. At 4.45am the cleaning staff for the hotels in the area began to arrive. All Clearly had a lot to say about the festivities of the previous evening and wanted to share their views with everyone else within about a 10 mile radius. When they finally finished talking and entered the various premises that they were going to, they were replaced by mopeds that clearly needed to be driven at high speed and with as much noise as possible at this time in the morning. They were followed by the street cleaners, and they by cars. I eventually found myself at 7.30am having had absolutely no sleep whatsoever! This is, of course, my own fault as I have lived, worked and visited Spain enough over the last 30 years that I should have expected it, but I had completely forgotten about the noise!

The church is ringing out its bells for Easter in the Macarena district of Seville

This morning we decided (in part due to my lack of sleep) to take a somewhat quieter stroll to the nearest ‘hop on, hop off’ bus stop and get a bus into town (our tickets remained valid until lunchtime today). We decided to stop off in a local bar in the ‘Macarena’ area for some breakfast. Captain Clarke and ‘S’ had ‘tostadas con marmelade’ (toast with marmalade, but one should remember that marmalade is not just orange marmalade, but any jam in Spain and this turned out to be peach). Gorgeous, having discovered that Cava was not on the menu, had a water (agua sin gas) and I a ‘cortado’ (small coffee). We sat near to a church which was ringing its bells to call for its Easter service and we people watched as people arrived for their dose of church before they all piled into a bar for the rest of the day (as tends to happen here in Spain). It was all very satisfactory and, having consumed our breakfast, we strolled across the road to the bus stop where a bus had just arrived which we took into town. These buses are usually very full and it is often impossible to find a seat on the upper deck, but clearly I was not the only person who had been kept awake all night by the revelries and we were the only people on it! We had a very pleasant ride down to the riverside by the ‘Torré d’Oro’ (tower of gold) where boats depart for a sight seeing tour from the river. Whilst we did intend to take a boat trip, it was still a little early, so we strolled into town with the intention of getting a small cup of coffee (or something) whilst the town, people and the sun arose for another day. We didn’t actually get our coffee, but we did have a nice gentle stroll around the town. We happened across the hotel Alfonso XIII which we all agree we will come back and stay in when we have won the lottery – at £660 per night for a basic room, it is a little out of our price range for the time being!

Our empty ‘Hop On, Hop Off’ bus into Seville this morning.

On our way around we saw some beautiful architecture. The bull ring is the second oldest in Spain and, whilst bull fighting has been banned for some years, it has been turned into a museum that gives history not just of bull fighting but also of Spanish culture in general. The ‘Torré d’Oro’ is a Moorish building that is topped with gold that the Moors brought with them when they occupied this part of Spain until about 1481. Actually there is a very strong Moorish influence on much of the architecture in the city which is one of the things that makes it beautiful. You may, at this point, be wondering why you are not seeing the usual photo galleries of the various sights we have seen. The reason is that, like many other aspects of the descriptions of this hotel, ye it does have free WiFi in all parts of the hotel, but it is utterly abysmal and certainly not up to the uploading of multiple large photo files. A gallery will be added upon our return to the UK. For the time being, in the interests of my sanity and patience, I am restricting the photos to a few that I can upload over the time it takes me to write this missive. One other small point on our quieter day today – not only did we walk 12.3 miles yesterday, but I also have blisters on the soles of both feet. The last time that happened was on our last trip to Spain – maybe there is a learning point here!

Our boat for the boat trip on the Guadalquivir river

And so, we took our boat trip along the Guadalquivir river. The modern name of Guadalquivir comes from the Arabic al-wādi al-kabīr which is really just another example of the Moorish influence in this region. It is the only navigable river in Spain and, although it used to be navigable all the way to Cordóba, it is now only navigable to Seville. The boat trip lasts an hour and has commentary in Spanish (obviously!), English, French, German and Italian. The commentary tends to be somewhat less informative in languages other than Spanish, but is nevertheless interesting and does gives one an opportunity to learn a little about the history of the river and some of the areas adjacent to it. Having enjoyed our trip on the river, it was time to think about lunch again. We decided to return to the area of the old town where the little shops and bars are located, largely because it would be quiet being Easter Sunday but almost certainly the bars would be open. This proved to be entirely accurate and after a little looking for a suitable establishment, Captain Clarke was dispatched to find somewhere to eat. As ever he did not disappoint and we had wonderful tapas in a very local bar that was packed with Spanish enjoying a tapa having either watched, or before watching, a parade.

This is the float that goes from church to church as part of the Easter parade in Seville

The parades pass from one church to another. In total around 70 churches are involved and the whole thing seems to take most of the afternoon and evening on each day. Not being an expert in these holy parades, we have found them to be somewhat bemusing as people watch the one float pass by and then, when it has passed, rush off to the next viewing point to see it again. Roads are closed and thousands and thousands of people watch. Whilst it has been interesting to see, it has made our navigation of the city particularly challenging and even this afternoon when we returned from lunch the inevitable parade was taking place which caused us to have to double back and we found ourselves almost exactly back where we had started. Consulting my ‘app’ I find we have already walked 5.6 miles today and we have yet to return to the Santa Clara area of the city where we shall dine again tonight. Having returned from lunch (non-alcoholic on my part) I have to admit that not only did Captain Clarke retire to his bed for a siesta, but so did I. I was so tired after my night of no sleep and after walking so far again, I had no option but to shut my eyes and let the world wash over me for an hour or so. The good news (at least from a navigational perspective) is that the Easter parades finish this evening. This should result in a lot less people being in the town and also the ability to navigate to and from our hotel without the inevitable street closures being much improved. I think that, on balance, I would be inclined to avoid Seville during ‘Santa Semana’ (Easter Week) unless I was specifically here to see the parades. It’s RudyMenTerry!