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I am in love with Spain! The people, the countryside and the cities are all a breath of fresh air after Morocco. It's so nice to be able to eat, drink and wear what we like when we like!
After landing in Tarifa we hopped on a bus to Algeciras where our train for Sevilla left from. The trains in Spain are very impressive! They had powerpoints in the seats to charge your phone, pop-out coat hooks on the walls and bike racks between carriages that you could hang and lock your bike up all for 1€!!! Jarrod found my excitement at all these gadgets very amusing! I'm like a 4 year old in these situations. I feel the need to press every button!
On our way to Sevilla we had a 2 hour stop over in the small town of Bobadilla. This was essentially our first impression of Spain and what a first impression! Rather than lug our bags around this town of unknown proportions, Jarrod decided to head off to find us a place to spend the next 2 hours. Well, 5 minutes later he was back, having already done a lap of the main street and discovering 5 pubs 2 of which, thankfully, were open! We chose to sit in the alfresco section - a couple of tables stuck on the road out the front - of a corner bar named Bar de Rincon, which literally translates to bar on the corner! Jarrod, very excitedly, got to order his first cerveza (beer) in Spanish and the barman, just as excitedly, got to reply in English. Now Bobadilla is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a phenomenon! It seemed like the kind of town where we would have made the front page headlines -'Unknown couple spotted drinking at pub'! It reminds me of the movie Chocolat' with a bit of a weird Tasmanian two-headed vibe!
After our close encounter of the third kind that was Bobadilla, we headed back to the train station on our way once more to Sevilla.
We arrived in Sevilla late, and after deciding which direction we believed the hostel we were thinking of staying at to be in, we chose to walk. After all it didn't seem that far on the map. Well distance is a funny thing when your carrying 10kg plus on your back! We got about half way before we chose an alternate hostel, the one right where we were standing seemed as good as any! We spent the night here and changed hostels in the morning to one closer to the centre of town. We then headed off to discover the sights of Sevilla. Our first stop was the Plaza de Toros (bullfighting ring). It was interesting to learn that the sport of bullfighting, as we know it today, actually began as a form of military training in the centre square of town that the towns people used to watch from their balconies. As it grew in popularity, they eventually moved it to an arena, declared it a national sport and introduced rules to ensure the bulls were killed as humanly and quickly as possible.
The afternoon was starting to heat up quickly so we decided to return to the hostel to spend the rest of the day chilling out. This is where the Elusive Sevilla Laundromat Saga began! Jarrod, being the sweaty monkey that he is, was quickly running out of t-shirts and jocks, so he headed off with his dirty washing to try and find a laundromat. The first one nearby was closed so he decided to cut some laps around town hoping to stumble across another one. How hard could it be, laundromats are everywhere right? Wrong! Sometime later he returns hot and bothered and still no clean clothes. He decides this time he's going to google laundromats and head out again with a plan. Another half an hour or so later he returns, laundry bag still full of dirty clothes! The Internet data on Sevilla's laundromats needs some serious updating!
The following day we visited the Seville Cathedral, we had seen it the night before from the pub across the road! It is one of the most extensive gothic cathedrals in the world. The height and magnificence of the ceilings is hard to describe. I literally stopped in my tracks when I first walked in and looked up. You can't even begin to fathom how they built in such massive proportions hundreds of years ago. We strolled around, looking like yuppies on our giant mobile phones that were our audio guides, before heading up the 98m high bell tower. This had to be rebuilt due to damages suffered in an earthquake. Thankfully they replaced the stairs with 34 floors of ramps! All that engineering brilliance and they couldn't install a lift? Luckily the view from the top makes the climb worth it. Overlooking the gorgeous town of Sevilla I'm feeling extremely jealous of the folks I can see enjoying their rooftop pools! From the cathedral we headed across town to the Plaza de Espana (Spain Square) in Maria Luisa Park. This stunning building was built in 1929 when Seville hosted the Ibero-American Exposition World's Fair. We weren't really sure what we were going to see when following the tourist map, the little symbol shown didn't do this building justice. It is simply magnificent and the half mile of gardens that front it weren't too shabby either!
After a long day of touristy sight seeing we were keen to check out the night life of Sevilla and experience our first taste of Spanish tapas. It's brilliant, you can walk down any street and find bustling bars with people jam packed inside and crowded around tables out the front if they are lucky enough to get one. If not, they just spill into the surrounding streets. It seems the liquor licensing is pretty lax here! At one of the bars we tasted the best roast beef roll I have ever eaten and at another, the place was so busy that you had to put your name on a chalkboard and wait to be called when a table was free. We waited at the bar for about 2 hours, needless to say after 2 bottles of vino we were well in need of some food!
Still with no luck on the laundromat front, and Jarrod not wanting to trudge around town with the washing bag - I'm sure people thought he was homeless - I had to resort to washing some of our clothes in the bathroom sink. The washing line from Anita came in very handy. In fact, while I'm on the subject all the travel items we were given prior to our journey have been extremely useful. Sandra's lollies made great sneaky snacks during Ramadan, Gayle's magic wash cloths have been a god send in the heat and for dirty train tables, Mum's camera bag has worked a treat and made carrying the camera in the backpack or handbag so much easier and the leather journals from Megan have become scrapbooks that I have been gluing every imaginable ticket stub and flyer in and jotting notes for these blogs!
Anyway, enough of the special mentions, back to the travels!
We broke up our journey to Granada with a stop in Cordoba. We didn't believe it warranted an overnight stay, we were right. From the train station we ventured into the old part of town to the Cathedral de Cordoba. Originally built as a Muslim mosque in 785, it is the largest Islamic monument in the west. Then the Christians came along, in all their conquesting glory, and stuck a great big cathedral in the centre of it. As remarkable and impressive as the Christian architecture and workmanship is, I believe the Muslims have a much more tasteful approach. They don't feel the need to plaster the walls and ceilings with artworks of saints and other religious insignia that are generally quite depressing! Instead they let the lines and curves of the architecture speak for itself.
From here were hoping to catch a glimpse of the Alcazar de Los Reyes Cristianos - a fancy way of saying gardens of Christian monarchs - as they were said to have some impressive ancient mosaics. Unfortunately for us this major attraction of Cordoba shuts at 2:30pm in the high tourist season! This spelt the end of our sight seeing in Cordoba, I told you it wasn't worth an overnight stay! The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing in a garden near the train station before continuing onto Granada.
Granada is home to the greatest concept I have ever come across. But I'll get to that later. Upon arrival we walked the short distance, or what would have been a short distance had we not followed the street signs that took us the car route avoiding one-way streets, to our hostel. Hostel Atenas was a gem of a find. For 25€ we got a room that was enormous, an ensuite bathroom, with hot water, air-conditioning, free wi-fi and a tv. Plus an added bonus, on arrival the friendly receptionist gave us a map and highlighted the best areas for tapas bars and restaurants and which buses to catch for the tourist destinations.
Now about these tapas bars. This is the world's greatest ever concept I spoke of earlier. For every drink you buy, in some places only beer qualifies, you receive a plate of food. These ranged from a small plate of pasta salad right up to a large ham and cheese roll with a side of fries and olives! The real beauty of it was for every round of drinks, you were given something different to eat. Now the average drink was costing us between 1 and 4€, so for no more than 15€ we were getting 4 rounds of drinks and 2 plates of food. We had to say no to the other 2 plates as we were about to burst! I'd be lying if I said we didn't sample more than one of these bars. In order to keep costs down we just had to bite the bullet and drink beer and sangria at lunch time, for our budgets sake I swear!
Believe it or not we didn't spend all our time in Granada sitting at bars eating and drinking, although this was a large portion of it, we did also visit the Alhambra. Made up of 3 main sections the Alcazaba, the Nasrid Palaces and the Generalife. Once again, with yuppie audio guide in hand, this one resembling a Bang & Olufsen phone or light sabre, we made our way around this World Heritage Site. As a whole, it is very impressive how overtime it has changed and grown with each ruler adding gardens and buildings. Once again a brilliant blend of Muslim and Christian styles. One of the most impressive things for me was their use of water throughout the gardens and palaces and the complex nature of the plumbing in such ancient times. A highlight was the water staircase that has streams running down the handrails on either side. After another monster day of walking, on average I think were covering about 10+kms a day, we were exhausted so after sampling a couple more tapas bars we hit the hay for the night ready to venture onto Madrid.
This spells the end of the Andalusian sector of our Spain journey.
P.S. Still no laundromats!
- comments
Mum & Dad.xx Fabulous! Keep them coming. xx
Gayle & Ken Totally agree, xx (hope u soon find a laundromat!!!!!!)