Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Travel Joy!~Sevilla

So about five minutes ago I was looking up tours for Cinque Terre in Italy. I literally squealed with joy and squirmed in my chair as I read about the tour and didn't care what the price was. All I need is Mariana's confirmation and the tickets will be booked! This a continuation of the travel joy I have experienced in the past couple of weeks and will embark on in the next few weeks. Its going to be busy but amazing! Next Tuesday I embark on a three week trip. In those three weeks I will visit Paris, Italy (Venice, Florence, and Rome), Croatia, Montenegro, Prague, and Switzerland. It will indeed be filled with travel joy! The past couple of weeks we have visited Sevilla, Granada, London, and Barcelona. 

Here is a little synopsis of Sevilla.

Sevilla

So Sevilla was our first trip outside of Madrid. I was excited to see a new place. Madrid
definitely has the city feel that I love but I was ready to see a new place since I have limited time here. We arrived in Sevilla in the afternoon and decided we would stay out of the heat by taking a siesta like the rest of the town. We then woke up for a tapas and wine tour that night. The next morning we went on a walking tour with about 40 people from other hostels. I enjoyed the walking tour more than I thought. I don't always like tours because I feel like my timing at each place doesn't always match the tour's but it went well by covering the town in about 2 hours and hearing interesting stories from our young Scottish tour guide. We then had lunch with our tour guide and some other people. I met more people in Sevilla from Australia than I think in my whole life. Apparently their economy is so great and they have a large traveling culture, a lot of Australians just take off to travel for a few months. I duly noted that idea and keep Australia in the back of my mind :-) 



Our second night there we went to a Flamenco show which was very entertaining. We loved every moment of it. We had trouble understanding the lyrics of the songs but would get a few lines here and there so we made up our own stories of the songs and dances. 





The next day we explored the Cathedral which is very pretty. It has Christopher Columbus' tomb which is seen to the left here. We learned that they decided to study his remains and found out they are not all of his because his body was shipped around the world...I think. Our tour guide's credibility wasn't verified. We climbed to the top of the tower  in the cathedral which was about 17 stories by steep ramps. We definitely get our exercise while traveling.




We then walked to Trianca which is across the river. They make sure to separate themselves from Sevilla and will not say they are from Sevilla. We enjoyed a nice dinner with a view of Sevilla across the river. I was very excited to see a body of water.
We said goodbye to Sevilla by climbing a new structure which is nicknamed the mushrooms. They have only been around for a few years so if you've been to Sevilla you may not know of them. We caught a great night view.