Alright, we’re doing it, we’re going back to Spain despite the fact last time we went if it could go tits up it very much did go tits up culminating in Tarrant stacking it off a segway in spectacular fashion and shattering her tibial plateau in the process. She’s still walking with a stick and that was back in September, though it does mean we get to take full advantage of special assistance at the airport because she finds standing in queues more difficult than actually walking. I’d very much like Spain to not be a massive fucking jinx, please. I’m learning the language. I can order food and everything. If Spain starts being a bugger I’m going to have to start from scratch with French or something and whilst I like the idea of swanning around France applying large quantities of fancy cheese to my facehole I really do have my little heart set on seeing really quite a lot of Spain.

Anyway, it started off quite well. We got on the first train out of our cold, moist West Yorkshire village which ran on time all the way to Manchester where we found out that every train after that one had been cancelled on account of a freight train deciding that it didn’t want to train anymore. Well fuck me, that was lucky! We made it to the airport, got Tarrant onto her special assistance thingy so she could be pushed around in a wheelchair like a princess, then got onto our plane which actually left and landed on time. Oh my. And with special assistance, or Sin Barreras as it’s called at Spanish airports, you’re fast-tracked through passport control so it was a very reasonable hour by the time we’d caught the bus into Seville and checked into our accommodation. I’d not accounted for this. I’d just assumed we’d be stupidly delayed and ended up shuffling into the apartment at some god awful hour, hungry and grumpy and ready to faceplant a pillow for eight consecutive hours. I didn’t have a plan for us arriving as scheduled. Obviously we went to the pub.

Actually, we did pop to the shop to stock up the fridge and buy coffee because we’re grown ups, then we had a little wander to take photos of orange trees and to consume a bottle of Cruzcampo whilst gawping at said orange trees because it’s the law to start off any trip to Seville by assaulting your liver with Cruzcampo, then we decided to head to a place I’d heard of called Bar Alfalfa which is, apparently, very popular for tapas. It was pretty packed when we rocked up at 5pm on a Tuesday evening but we managed to get a couple of stools at the bar and ordered, somewhat predictably, more Cruzcampo and three tapas. Bresasola which is cured beef carpaccio, parmesan and rocket so it’s basically health food. Salmorejo, which is like a cold soup with some ham in it and half a boiled egg and it’s proper Andalusian. Also some jamón ibérico de bellota, obviously, because we were obsessed with that shit in Mallorca and I legit think about it, like, once a week and drool a bit. I think the belotta bit means the pig was acorn-fed but to be fair you could probably feed it jam sandwiches its whole life and I wouldn’t have a fucking clue. I don’t care what it ate, slice it thinly and hand it to me, please.

The only problem with sitting at the bar was that we got to watch all the delicious food go out to various other humans, who were pretty much all foreigners by the way. It’s very much on the tourist radar which was probably why by the time we left a queue had built up to get in. An American couple behind us had ordered these amazing-looking strips of dead stuff served with spuds, I asked them what it was and they shrugged, pointed to a specials board we’d totally missed and said, “Whatever that third one down is.” Ternera de retinto. Okay, not a clue but go on then, let’s have some of that. It was fucking delicious and melt in the mouth and, it turns out, it’s veal. Oh. Well we’re going to Hell then aren’t we, probably even more so for enjoying the fuck out of it. The “Retinto” part is, apparently, the breed of Andalusian cattle. Despite the tiny, tortured, tasty tasty baby cow we really liked Bar Alfalfa, I see why it’s popular. The server even cheerfully tolerated my terrible Spanish and taught us a few new words too.

We probably should have just called it a night there, we very nearly did, but instead we popped around the corner from the apartment to a rooftop bar with a stunner of a view of the cathedral all lit up to have a beer. Then another beer. Then a brandy called Magno, on account of the fact it’s a Spanish brandy and it felt rude not to. This bar served crunchy corn snacks with the beer and, somewhat delightfully, a little pot of sweets with the brandy which was set over a glass of hot water. I’d have taken a photo but it turned out I was quite drunk and drunk me doesn’t have the presence of mind to take photos. The fresh air sniper got me as we left the bar too. We weren’t even in bed too late, maybe ten-ish? But some evil force sucked all of the moisture from my entire being as I slept and I woke up with an underserved hangover the following morning which was hardly fair. I ate salad and everything, I should have been the picture of health.

Fortunately I wasn’t hungover enough for it to affect the intense touristing which was to happen on Wednesday, our first full day. There are a metric fuck tonne of religious buildings in Seville but we decided to just put the two in our eyeholes. You can absolutely get churched out, like, there’s only so many statues of a forlorn saint or a bleeding bloke hanging off a cross you can gawp at before you’re done. Obviously the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede would be one of them on account of it being The Done Thing™, and the other would be the Iglesia Colegial del Divino Salvador, or the El Salvador church, because it was included in the ticket for the cathedral. We bought our tickets online, you have to choose a time for the cathedral but you can just rock up to El Salvador whenever you feel like it so we figured we’d do that first. It’s probably not much anyway, if it was that good it wouldn’t just be thrown in with the eminently popular cathedral as a second thought would it? We rounded the corner as the attendant was showing us how to use the audio guide and we quite rudely interrupted her when our jaws simultaneously hit the floor and we uttered some manner of noise that could have been construed as, “Wow!”

Yeah okay, that altarpiece, that’s really quite spectacular. That’s where we headed first as the audioguide explained, using very big words, what we were looking at. Apparently we started at the bottom with the immaculate conception. Above that we see the transfiguration of Christ. At the top there just chilling on a cloud is the big man himself, Lord God Almighty. The whole thing is covered with carvings and statues of saints and angels. Like, you could stare at it for hours and keep seeing new shit all the time. The audioguide did pretty much explain who all the key players were but that entered one ear and slowly trickled out the other as I tried to comprehend the sheer quantity of gold leaf. There was also a lot of looking up involved as we were told all about the painting on the ceiling and the very impressive dome which my booze soaked braincells weren’t happy about.

The chapels around the side were just as impressive as the sod off great big altarpiece at the front to be fair and took decades to construct. I was obsessed with all the faces peering out from the sculptures. Why so many creepy little faces? Were they like, hang about, lads! We’ve got a bit of a gap here! And the boss was just like, just put some faces in it, fuck’s sake, do I have to tell you how to do everything? Everywhere I looked there was a cluster of faces, or an upside-down face peering out of a nook. It’s a whole thing! There’s also an art gallery behind the altarpiece containing all your usual Catholic type art, like heads on platters and things. Seriously, Catholics, are you okay? You can even go down to the crypt and see remains of the mosque the church was built on the site of. But yes, this church is very much worth a visit in its own right.

After we’d gotten our El Salvador fix we headed off towards the cathedral. The weather though, guys! Blue skies and sunshine, and whilst many people were rugged up in their big coats it felt practically tropical compared to Huddersfield. We’d booked for 1pm and had a bit of time to kill so we killed it by sprawling on a ledge in the sunshine like big, pink lizards after politely refusing horse and cart rides from the many, many on offer. Glorious way to pass the time, and the sun wasn’t so intense than we had to worry about losing an entire layer of epidermis to the sun gods.

Right then, this cathedral. The first thing you do is go up the big tower known as the Giralda. It’s 34 not-too-steep ramps followed by 17 steps and it’s really not that bad, though I have two fully functioning legs unlike my beloved who gallantly hobbled up the tower anyway. They do helpfully count the ramps for you so you know how far you’ve got to go rather than shuffling round and round and round wondering if this is just your life now and you’d just have to keep going until you starved to death or something. The views from the top are worth it though, Seville is a stunner of a city and it’s a beautiful thing to behold from up there. Little bit uncomfortable for your ear drums if one of the bells starts going off, mind. That can fuck off a bit. We made our way back down after we’d had our fill of bird’s eye views, it really took it out of Tarrant, bless her.

This cathedral though, it is utterly vast but somehow less decadent than El Salvador. It doesn’t look as much like King Midas showed up and spray-vomited all over everything. Maybe because it’s more spread out? I don’t know, but there’s loads to see and the audioguide will take you around it so you know what you’re looking at. So that tower you just climbed up? The Giralda? Used to be a minaret, on account of the fact there was a mosque here until Ferdinand III rocked up and turned it into a place of Christian worship in 1248 which is quite a while ago now, I think you’ll admit. Then they just started pulling parts of it down in 1402 and rebuilding it as a proper cathedral over the ensuing century, as you do. Well they did a wonderful job.

The main altar though, now that’s an obnoxious quantity of gold leaf. It’s made up of panels depicting the life of Jesus, 44 of them I believe, and that’s really all I remember. The audioguide was an utter onslaught of information which was great but honestly, I can’t really remember much of it at all. Ferdinand III, the bloke who conquered Seville and turned it Christian is buried here somewhere, and the remains of Christopher Columbus are here too. Well, bits of him anyway. His body was moved around a lot before finishing up here and it seems they lost some of him along the way. He’s unlikely to give a fuck, he’s dead, he probably doesn’t care that some of him is in Seville whilst a street dog in Havana is chewing on one of his ribs. They’ve gone all out with the coffin too, it’s held aloft by four pallbearers, each representing the four Spanish kingdoms of his time; Castille, Aragon, Leon, and Navarre.

Right then, Tarrant was ready for a tasty, cold motor impairment beverage whereas my liver recoiled in horror at the very thought, so we managed to locate a rare table in the sun and I had a Radler. Still a Cruzcampo beer of course, I’ve not forgotten where I am. And that’s a thing here too, it’s actually remarkably difficult to find a place to drink a beer in the sun in Seville, probably because of the narrow streets, the majority of tables are in shade. This is likely perfect in the middle of summer when it’s forty-odd degrees and everything is lava, but right now we’re still in the throws of winter so whilst it’s glorious “get your arms out for the first burn of the season” weather to us northern-dwelling Brits, it’s still chilly in the shade. We sat and fortified ourselves for the loooong long walk to Plaza de España.

We probably could have gotten a couple of buses but instead we headed to it on foot which should have taken about 20 minutes but obviously Tarrant is still hobbling. She did really, really well and, well, it’s worth it. Plaza de España is quite the treat for the eyeholes, with a huge, long building curving around a pedestrianised space, decorated with tiles. Colourful tiled benches line the space depicting areas of Spain and cute little (also very tiled and outstandingly photogenic) bridges cross a river which people were rowing down. You can keep your rowing, thank you very much. The idea is very romantic but I think the reality would involve a bit of swearing, a lot of sweating, no small amount of crashing into the sides, and I can pull a muscle in my sleep these days so I doubt rowing would be the best thing for my aging back. No, we would settle for gentle strolling. Well, I would anyway, Tarrant was pretty much done by this point so she just hung out on a tiled map of the Canary Islands as I skipped around, brandishing a photographic device at literally everything.

We did go for a little walk together and found three guys playing guitar and singing, along with two women; a younger woman and and someone’s great-grandma by the looks of things. The latter was the one that got up to dance and she was brilliant! I assume it’s some manner of flamenco but I wouldn’t really know flamenco if it was handed to me in a package clearly marked “Flamenco”. That’s what the city is known for so I’m just going to assume that was it. Could have been the fucking tango for all I know about music. We watched them for a while then gave them all of our change before finally heading off to get a coffee and a snack back at the apartment before my stomach started trying to digest itself.

We got a taxi back to where we were staying, right near Las Setas, and chilled in the room for a bit. It had already been an epic day and we wanted to finish it off by watching the firey skyball fuck off from atop Las Setas which is a gigantic, wooden sculpture. It’s actually the biggest wooden structure in the world. I can imagine the horror of the locals when they started building it, it’s not exactly in keeping with a historic city kind of vibe, but I actually love it. I didn’t realise it was timed entry though so when we rocked up to buy our tickets then head up for sunset we were told the next time slot was 7pm, which was bang on the time the sun would disappear for the night. Well, fuck. Okay then, your ticket allows you to come back one more time within 48 hours so we could just come back tomorrow.

They do, however, let you up 15 minutes before your time slot so we took full advantage of that and made it to the top with plenty of time to watch the sun do its thing. Amazing. There’s a nightly light show from sunset onwards too so we decided to hang around for that as we were here, and that’s when we noticed the full moon entering the show, stage East. Well that’s a stunner isn’t it? I didn’t even realise it was the full moon tonight, this was just too fucking perfect, we couldn’t have timed it better if we’d actually timed it. We hung around as white light rippled through the squares of the structure to chilled music. It was actually really cool, like it was breathing, like some manner of Star Trek space beastie trying to communicate with light. It was about half an hour after sunset when the colourful lights kicked in and the show, the Aurora, started. This goes on all night so we just watched for as long as it took to get too bastard cold then headed down for some food at one of the many, many restaurants that surround Las Setas. Tapas, obviously, because tourists gonna tourist, plus we’re just big fans of small plates that we can share.

I didn’t mean for today to be as big as it ended up being. I was utterly knackered so I can only imagine how Tarrant was coping with her one fully functioning leg. It was an absolute cracker though, Seville already had our hearts and it was only really day one. I think I will get fat here. Fat and tanned. Fat, tanned and happy. I don’t think I could cope in the middle of summer here at all, I’d end up melting into a useless pool of flesh and hair and have to be repatriated in a bucket, but right now in the middle of winter? I’ll take it.

Jump to “Useful shit to know…”

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Sevilla, Provincia de Sevilla, Andalucía, España

Stayed at: Singular Metropol, Sevilla

Useful shit to know…

• The EA (Especial Aeropuerto) bus connects Seville with the airport. It’s €5 one way or €6 return, but the return has to be used that day or the next.
• There’s a kiosk outside of arrivals where you can buy a ticket, there are ticket machines, or you can pay on board. We used card to pay.
• The next stop is announced inside the bus and it terminates at the main bus terminal, Plaza de Armas.
• To return to the airport you can get on at Plaza de Armas but it’s outside the terminal on Calle Turneo. You’ll see the clearly marked bus stop. We paid by card, tapping the machine by the door as we got on.

• We bought our tickets for the cathedral and El Salvador on this website. We bought the one with the cathedral audioguide for €18 each.
• The audioguide for El Salvador was an extra €2.50 each. It’s very much worth it.
• When you buy your tickets you’ll be asked to choose the day and time that you want to go. This is for the cathedral, you don’t need to choose a time for El Salvador.
• You can also buy your tickets on the day but it’s advisable to do this at El Salvador as the queues will be shorter. You’ll still be asked to choose a time to visit the cathedral.

• Plaza de España is free to enter. There’s a toilet nearby but it’s 60c so maybe don’t give ALL your change to the street entertainers.

• Las Seta de Seville costs €16 per person and it’s a timed entry. We rocked up at 6pm and our ticket was for 7pm but you can get in 15 minutes before that.
• You can buy your ticket online, or there’s a kiosk in the square, or you can go downstairs where the entrance is and buy one there.
• You’ll see a TV screen telling you which timeslots can start queuing. There’s no point in trying to get in early, we saw someone give it a go but to no avail.
• You ticket permits a second entry within 48 hours.