Feria in Seville

We caught another good Spanish train from Cadiz to Seville (or Sevilla), and with the use of map apps on my itouch, Colleen's iPhone and Sibel's local map; we trekked across Seville, through meandering laneways and reached our hostel, the ´living roof´ (it had fake grass on the roof bar).

That afternoon we took a hostel tour around Madrid and learnt more about the history of the place, its buildings and people. It is regularly 45´`C in summer which is nuts! We tried to avoid the gypsies outside the cathedral who give you rosemary and ´read your palm´and then request euros.

The cathedral in town is pretty impressive, this weekend was the end of Seville´s Feria festival, so there were flamenco dresses and horse drawn carriages everywhere.

Carriages

Side of the cathedral

One of the many squares in Seville, the facade of the building is incredibly detailed

Seville´s street, plaza and square names are all on the sides of building - similar to most of Spain

That night we went to a flamenco show through the hostel and found out the negative aspect to sitting too close to people dancing crazily around you for half an hour, sweat flew! They were pretty incredible, I´´ve never seen people´s feet move so quickly on such a small area (about 3m by 4m stage with our chairs right up to the edge).

Yesterday we headed to the royal palace, free for students(!), and marveled at the incredible tapestries, colored tiles, mosaics and decorations. Minimalist furniture coverings left you with the true effect of all the tiled decorations and incredible ceilings. The adjoining gardens were also pretty impressive, though we may have been distracted by the groups of ducklings wandering or swimming after their mother! Also present was the impressively coloured peacock, who was looking at us inquisitively for food.
(most of my photos of the palace are in portrait and I can´t rotate them at the moment, come and see them when I get home instead!)

outside the Palace

so cute!

A hungry peacock

The girls needed to do some prezzie shopping, but being Sunday, nearly all the stores were closed. Instead, we headed for lunch and met the woman who hated the world; she seemed to take such pleasure out of making us wait at every stop of the way. I know we are tourists, but the menu was even in English, they are obviously catering for that section of the market! Anyhow, we were all glad that we didn't share her glorious perspective...

Colleen bought some cakes on her way out and Sibel picked one up at the next cake shop so after Selen bought her gelati we sat on the steps of Plaza del Salvador in the sunshine and admired the buildings.

I wanted to head off on a long walk which the girls weren't so keen on, so I left them to tourist shopping and the cathedral and walked around other areas of the city.

strange structure!

art market

Along the river at Seville

There was quite a strange structure, a huuuge mushroom if you like, that I wandered under, along past painters selling their wares outside the museum of fine art, across the river and down the other side.

As it was the last day of Feria, there were flamenco dresses everywhere and the bars were packed to the brim with people snacking on tapas as they drank their beer, sangria or wine.

Once I got back to the hostel and met up with the girls again we made our way to the riverside for dinner. We sat right on the river and had a lovely meal with an even lovelier waitress. An orange tree above us dropped an orange on a luckily unoccupied seat on the next table! The girls enjoyed some meat croquettes (they are like deep fried filled oblong golf balls), which prompted Selen to be smiling 'croquetishly' at the camera (groan!).
The girls loved their paella so much the dish was scraped clean, this caused some amusement within the kitchen staff who must not see a wiped clean paella dish that often. Colleen and I caught their laughter and packed up ourselves and admitted to 'being hungry', but really, it was one paella shared between three girls! Colleen had a nice chat to the guy doing dishes as she waited for the bathroom, to the amusement of the other waiters!

Dinner on the river

We left the restaurant and went down to the Feria, it was a huge showground type area filled with large tents that were heavily decorated in all manner of things and had their own bars and kitchens. Most are private tents for families or groups to come together, dress up in expensive flamenco attire, eat expensive food, drink a lot and dance the week away! Others are public tents where anyone can come and do the same thing! Sunday was the last night so things were quietening down and some tents being packed up, but there would have still been over two hundred different structures I reckon, maybe more. We found a public tent and had a few drinks as we watched some locals dancing to music, it was a bit karaoke like in it's quality though (although, mum and dad, it was not nearly as bad as that couple singing in that restaurant we went to on the way to Chiang Mai!!).

We walked back in time to see the 'end of feria' fireworks on the river and midnight and fell into bed, ready to travel back to Barcelona the following day.

one of the Feria streetscapes