Welcome to Seville.

Thursday 7/3/13

We were very comfortable in our room last night. The beds are great, and a soothing warm bath made me very relaxed.

I can now give you a run down of Seville's night life. It's pretty quiet 'til about twelve. At twelve the restaurants pack up their outside tables and chairs. Twelve thirty the rubbish is brought out to the bins. At about one am the staff leave to go home, obviously after a few staffies drinks. Then at two am, the rubbish trucks pick up the rubbish. At around three am the early finish party goers head home, followed from then 'til five am by the late stayer party goers. At about six am you go to sleep. I must admit I did lay in bed laughing at the singers making their way home at about four thirty. They weren't bad.

HINT: If you ever stay in Seville, get a room away from the street if you can.

We woke up late to a very grey, rainy day. We can't complain though because they've been few and very far in between. We can't work out the church bell across the road. It chimes fifty seven times, yes, fifty seven, followed by another one, two, or three times for the quarter hour. It only does this about six times a day. What the?

So it was time for a walk. Our initial feel about Seville was confirmed. It's a wonderful place.

Typical courtyard inside the front doors to apartments.

How narrow? The tyres squealed on the curb when the cars went through here. Footpath  No, wait 'til there's a gap between cars and go or it.

There is certainly no shortage of good places to eat here, so we choose where to eat by the staff's approach. We were approached by a waiter as we walked down the street and he did it with a smile and a bit of humour, so he won our business. We ended up with way too much food, but that's OK because we had a doggy bag to take way for later. La Sacristia on Mateos Gago serve good food and cold beer. Excellent.

La Sacristia, our lunch stop, complete with great waiter.

We were treated to a superb display of parking while we enjoyed our lunch. A woman stopped outside the restaurant and decided she was going to park her medium sized car in the space in front of the restaurant. She performed a perfect reverse parallel park. No biggie you're thinking? She ended up about four inches from the curb, with about six inches clearance at the front and the back of the car. Amazing. Even the French couple next to us commented on her skill.

I love the architecture here. It is exactly what I expected Spain to be like. All the old buildings have been retained. I'm sure they are modernised inside, but the feel remains  I'm very comfortable here.

We walked into a five sided plaza and each side displayed a different and equally stunning style of architecture.

And, of course, there was a Cathedral...

There are plazas everywhere, and each one is surrounded by little restaurants and cafes, and they are frequented by hundreds of people. The lifestyle here is so different. I love it. This outside living way of life also means all the kids and dogs are out enjoying life as well, not shut up at home.

The big plus side to this of course is that we get to meet lots of dogs...

Say hello to Luna the Lab, and her friend Martha. (Sorry Marth, the photo of you isn't so good). They were very nice people. How nice? After a five minute chat, Martha offered us her phone number and said "If there's anything you need while you're here, give us a call." Like I said, nice people. I did ask if they had a 4WD and would travel to Morocco?

Luna was such a well behaved puppy.

Luna sent me another photo after she got home...

She said it was nice meeting us. She was very tired after her walk and was having a big sleep.

We continued on our walk and after completing a big circle, ended up at the bar next to the hotel for a few glasses of wine. Then it was across the road for a feed, which was followed by bed time.

Seville is such nice place.I think we'll stay a while...