She was in Sevilla (Pt.1)

Okay, 4 days and 4 nights, this will probably be a pretty long post, haha. Reason being the plane tickets were cheaper on specific days thus the imbalance of number of days spent in both cities, though Sevilla definitely warrants a longer visit.

Sevilla. is. GORGEOUS.

The architecture is amazing given that it is influenced by everything, from Muslim to Christianity. As a matter of fact everything in this Andalusian region seems to mix everything; they all come together in peace. Wait till we talk about the food. Haha.

Transportation:
Feet. It's a huge place but other than getting to and fro the airport, we really just used our legs. Most common transportation is the trams in the city centre with buses being the most convenient. There's also a metro but I'm not too sure about the map. Or you could bust 50 euros per cart on the horse carriages. Crazy.

Base: La Hosteria de Dona Lina
Location: 3.5/5
Environment: 4/5
Room: 3.5/5

If there's one thing Sevilla can beat Venice in, is the massive alleyways for you to get lost in, especially in Santa Cruz which is the old Jewish quarters we stayed in. Had a stressful night trying to locate our hostel as we arrived close to 10pm and the taxi driver could not drop us at the door because the passages are mostly pedestrian only. Unless you use GPS, otherwise you could end up like us, calling the hostel reception to come get us. Although Sevilla is a more significant tourist attraction than Valencia, spoken English is still minimal so it's hard to understand people especially when they give directions. That said and done, most of them are more friendly and ready to help than not. The location though hard to find, can be easy to navigate once you get your bearings right, which is much easier in daylight. It's located in the old city centre, so it's really really pretty with cobbled roads and gorgeous tiled courtyards. There are also plenty of places to eat in the alleyways, let them surprise you. The room was spacious as it's meant for 3 people, the water pressure was much better here though using solar power so you might need to wait a while for hot water. Otherwise it's the usual tiled floors, and they even have air-conditioners! Haha.

 Entrance to hostel

 Dining area

Bedroom

Day 1
Alcazar
Giralda
Cathedral
Iglesia del Salvador
Plaza Encarnacion
Metropol Parasol
Centro

Started the day early and fresh, headed to the Cathedral but it was only open for mass thus decided to head to the Alcazar instead which was once a castle. It's still in used nowadays as a hotel for the King of Spain should he choose to stay there. The Alcazar is gorgeous, I LOVED IT. It's very different in terms of architecture from the castles I've seen, mostly utilizing Mudejar influences which is a marriage between Christian and Muslim influences - who would have thought? I rented an audio guide but the small notices in each main area provide good enough information. Took about two hours just to visit each room in the palace - would have took longer if we tried to finish the gardens and the readings. The gardens are gorgeous. You would notice that there are a lot of palm trees or large trees, simply because it was brought it from America. Another thing about the Spanish palaces is that they are usually just empty rooms without furniture, so it can be quite boring though the structure itself is worth a see - pay attention to ceilings and walls, pretty.

 The first main patio that greets you in the Alcazar. If you click and see clearly, the top half of the building is inspired by architecture from Sevilla, Cordoba and other Andalusian regions, thus they look different.

 Inner patio; Andalusian architecture preserves the Muslim influences of having patio, commonly with plants (as opposed to flowers) and usually having a water feature

Alcazar gardens, see them massive trees?

Then we headed back to the Cathedral and climb its tower, known as the Giralda. It was initially a tower with a flat roof, like a box but when the Catholic took over Spain, they added a bell tower. This was the best tower climb ever because it had no steps, just smooth slopes - to accommodate the person who has to go up the towers 5 times a day to announce the Muslim prayers - on a horse. View was amazing as usual, and Sevilla is huge. Came back down and explored the interior of the Cathedral, the largest of the Gothic cathedrals in the world and 3rd largest cathedral behind St.Peters in Rome and St.Paul's in London. I felt massively proud to have gone to the 3 largest cathedrals in the world, all three which are amazingly gorgeous, hehe. The altar in the Sevilla Cathedral was being refurnished thus we could not see it, but it is set to be the largest altar in the world depicting 42/46 sins from the bible. I can't remember the number so please correct me if I'm wrong. With Spanish cathedrals, particularly the ones in Sevilla, carvings and sculptures seem to dominate rather than mosaic, frescos or paintings as in other European cities. The intricate details of each carving was amazing, I particularly love the eerie paintings furnishing the massive organ

 One facade of the massive Cathedral

 Floor-to-ceiling organs

 View from the Giralda

Buying tickets to the Cathedral permits free entry into the Del Salvador church located about 15 minutes away from the Cathedral. This was equally gorgeous albeit smaller. Again, really gorgeous sculptures & carvings that are furnished in gold colours. After that we walked to Plaza Encarnacion, one of the newest squares being in the city centre. The main attraction here is the Metropol Parasol, otherwise known to everyone as the mushroom/waffle due to its shape. It's basically a look out point in the middle of Sevilla and was designed by a Berlin artist. I loved its design and thought it's really different from other lookout points, plus it's 1.35 euros to go and you don't even need to climb up as there's a lift. After that, it was more of walking around to the La Magdalena church at the borders of the Centro (city centre) as siesta is taken a lot more seriously here than in Valencia, haha.

Altar in Iglesia del Salvador

 What do you think? Mushroom or waffle?

 The walkway

 View from Metropol Parasol

You see crazy beautiful buildings like these all over Sevilla

Day 2
Sevilla LowCost Walking Tours - Monument Tours
Sevilla LowCost Walking Tours - Legend Tours

Our second day was a day of tours. Thanks to the genius-ness of my travel buddy, we found a tour that is founded by students of the Sevilla University thus you can pay as much as you think its worth for them to continue the project. We really enjoyed it especially the Legend Tours which was held during the evening to night and tells you the stories of Sevilla's Santa Cruz alleyways, more on that later. It was easy to book the tour, either through email or telephone; here's a link to their FB page.
With the Monument Tours, we walked all around the city as our guide tells us the history behind each monument. For example, the University of Sevilla is once a tobacco factory, and boy was it a gorgeous one. It is supposed to take about 2 hours, but I think we took close to 3 hours simply because we were asking lots of questions, and it's just two of us for the English tour - private tour at a cheap price ;)
We both loved the Legend tours even more because it is much more interesting plus we had a really really nice guide. Since the guides are students, it's much easier to communicate and you learn stuff about each other's country such as the political systems, haha. An example of the story we heard was also with the University of Seville which had a Roman Goddess of Gossip sculpture on its rooftop. Back then, there was this dude who came to the tobacco factory it was and stared at the Goddess. When the man returned everyday and did the same thing, curious factory workers asked why he did so. His reply was that apparently the sculpture will blow its trumpet, but that does not make sense because it is a lifeless sculpture. So according to legend, the only time it will blow its trumpet is when a virgin walks through the archway beneath this roof. And it has not sounded for years, so go figure, haha. It's stories like these throughout the tour particularly in the Santa Cruz where it was the old Jewish quarters so we got to go through alleyways and listen to stories at the particular street or house.
A funny thing that happened though was at one of the tour stops when we were listening to our tour guide telling us the story. And these bunch of people came next to us, and this dude took something out of our guide's backpack. My instant reaction was to reach my hand out to stop the person, who ended up looking really shocked because...it was the guide for the Spanish version of the tour who was just taking a leaflet out of the backpack's side pocket and mistaken by me to be a pickpocket. HAHAHA. I was massively embarassed but it's funny, no?

 University of Sevilla, see the Roman Goddes statue at the rooftop?

 Find the 3rd hand of St Peters for good luck forever ;)

 Part of the Legends Tour - story of the Devil's window

The beautiful cathedral at night

Again as with Valencia, there was a lot more walking around than visiting places of attraction. So while agenda like the tours didn't take whole day per se, in the middle we had long lunches, siestas and more food.

On to part 2!