Day 1 - Seville

We had an early start and arrived at Gatwick airport at 7am.

After having had our flight cancelled a few weeks ago, I had been obsessively checking our new carrier, Vueling, for the status of the flight to Seville. Gatwick airport was busy, and we took our place in the end of a long long queue to check in our bags. It was very well organised with staff checking people were not going to miss flights and were in the right place. It took us around 90 minutes to get from here to the departure lounge, which given recent news reports was great.

Our flight was comfortable (seats with extra leg room are always worth it) and after 2 and a half hours we touched down in Seville airport and were met by a blast of 46 degree air on stepping out of the plane! We took a taxi to our hotel. The driver, with a smirk, said 46C is normal for Sevilla, not normal for you.

The hotel - Posado del Lucero is beautiful. A very old building with high vaulted ceilings (XVI century inn, with recent modernisation). Oliver has his own room, which means no more sofa bed sleeps for our not so little boy.

La Posada del Lucero (the Inn of Brightness) - the interior exterior

We set down our bags and braved the extreme heat (no exaggeration) and walked 5 minutes to the Plaza de la Encarnacion. This used to be a large open square with restaurants and shops around, but now has beautiful, huge, wooden parasols covering the whole thing. They are called the Metropol Parasol or Setas de Sevilla - or known locally at the ‘mushrooms’. The area was originally a market and when it was decided to build an underground car park for the market they found architectural remains dating back to Roman times to that put a stop to that. The remains are now a museum and after a competition to design something for the square, the wooden mushrooms were built.

It is the largest wooden structure in the world.

We bought tickets to walk up (it’s actually a lift) and the ticket office lady warned us of the extreme heat so only charged half price, but hey, an Englishman abroad and all that, we ploughed on ahead. Oh boy, it was HOT. We wandered around the platform at the top and enjoyed the beautiful views across Seville.

A little hungry and in need of shade we walked down some cute cobbled streets and found the small Bar el Comercia serving tapas and sandwiches. It was tiled inside, beautiful and COOL. Oliver and Andrew had ham sandwiches with cheese and I had a ‘Spanish’ omelette. Two cokes and two beers later and we crossed the street for an ice cream, which Oliver ordered for us in the most wonderful Spanish.

Ready for lunch

We wandered around, a little lost, with a map, trying to get our bearings. We finally found the main part of the old town, with the cathedral and tower.

Back to the hotel and we unpacked our bags and donned our swimming costumes and had a long dip in the hotel pool. It is a vey small, long pool, on the roof of the hotel, but we three fitted in nicely and spent a most welcome 30 minutes chatting and splashing and laughing. When I say small, I mean you could touch both sides at the same time.

We decided to cross the river for the evening meal, via the Puente de Isabel II (Puente de Triana), to Triana. This area of the city is very important in the history of Seville. It is very much it’s own neighbourhood and is the birthplace (although many towns in Spain claim the same) of Flamenco dance. It is also where the colourful ceramics of Spain are produced. The hotel had told us it was the last day of the Feria de Triana - a festival of 5 days of celebration. Music, dance, sports competitions are held on the banks of the river. It was busy and full of people having a great time with friends. We spotted lots of people in the water and later learned that this was the tradition of “la Cucaña”. This competition requires participants to walk along a boat’s bow covered with grease in order to catch the little flag placed on the very top of it. If you can do it, you win and take a prize. If not, you end up in the drink.

After wandering around and taking in the atmosphere we settled on an Italian restaurant (!!) for dinner. Oliver not so sure about Tapas - which he says he will try tomorrow. The meal was very nice, not very Spanish, but welcome after a long day of travel and us all feeling weary (and me a little grumpy).

We walked back to the hotel and poured ourselves into the huge beds and the air conditioning on full blast. No alarms now, just rest.

A pleasant start to our Spanish adventure, and feeling very happy and very lucky to be here.