Seville is the 4th largest town in Spain, about double the size of Córdoba, but it seems much larger. It was also unimaginably rich with its “discovery” of the Americas, and Seville shows the evidence of that wealth with an incredible density of grand, ornate, beautiful and well maintained palaces, churches, monuments and plazas. It’s one of the most visited places in Spain, and it’s not surprising.
The apartment that Andrew found for us was pretty central and it’s just a block from one of the most amazing public art structures I’ve seen.
Setas de Sevilla (“Mushrooms of Seville”) or Las Setas (“The Mushrooms”), initially titled Metropol Parasol, is a large, predominantly wood structure made of plywood that towers over a large square. It’s the second largest wooden sculpture in the world.
We spent 5 nights in Seville, and we could have easily spent another 2 weeks for all the things to do. Chris had a day+ in bed with some sickness, and so she missed some of the touring around that I did with Katherine and Andrew in the first couple days.
Just the “normal” streets of Seville are captivating, their buildings often decorated with amazing tiled exteriors and patterned walls. Narrow medieval streets snake this way and that, confounding GPS signals, so that we sometimes found ourselves wandering around trying to get somewhere and being temporarily lost, but we really didn’t care since every street brought new pleasures.
There are main attractions in Seville too, including the Alcazar, the cathedral, the Plaza España and many other places, and we took a bus tour with Andrew and Katherine to get acquainted with the city.
The next day, I took my bike on some of the same route so I could spend more time seeing things along the way.
Chris, Andrew and Katherine took a paella cooking class that evening and it was “the best thing Chris had done in Spain” and they all learned a lot about how to make paella!
Chris and I went to a flamenco show and it was amazing. The male dancer was really outstanding and the main female dancer did such captivating and exotic movements with her hands.
Food was good in Seville. Our dinner after flamenco was on the square near our apartment. Chris had a grilled fish and I had tuna belly with a beet cream sauce that was really amazing.
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