SEVILLE
I've
been meaning to write this blog for a few days now, but time has just been
flying by since I got back to Pavia that I've barely had a chance to sit down
and eat, let alone update on the truly fantastic time I had over in Spain!
There's so much to say that I don't even know where to begin- this will be a
long entry, brace yourselves! I
had booked the plane tickets a few months ago as I really wanted to go down to
Seville to see Siân and Diane, and then over to Valencia to see Kat. The time
crept up (as it always seems to do!) and before I knew it, it was the day to
leave Italy for sunny Spain! I left Pavia on Wednesday evening last week, and
took the train to Milan where I had booked a hostel for the night as my flight
went at 6am on Thursday morning and the first train out of Pavia is at 6am! The
only choices I had were to sleep in the airport or to get a hostel in Milan,
and I think I made the right decision as I got a few hours sleep at least
before I had to wake up at 3.30am to get the bus to the airport at 4! The
flight went smoothly and before I knew it, I was walking off the plane having
landed in Seville!
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| Las Cetas |
Siân
met me at the bus station in the centre (I had to get a bus from the airport to
the city centre) and we then wandered back to her place in the trendy Triana
district to drop off my case before heading out again to explore. First stop on
Siân's tour of Seville was a strange modern structure in the centre which goes
by the name locally as 'Las Cetas' (The mushrooms). Visually it was a bit
strange as it looked too modern in an ancient city, but it was constructed in
2011 to put Seville on the ‘contemporary architecture map’. We bought student
tickets and zoomed up in a lift to the top where there were the most incredible
views of the city! You could see for miles around and even see the major points
of the city such as the cathedral, the Plaza de España and various churches. I
don't think I realised just how big Seville was until I saw those views!
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| Walking around the structure |
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| A view from the top of Las Cetas |
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| Temperature (proof!) |
After walking around
for a while we were thirsty so decided to head to get a drink. It also wasn't
long until the temperature rose and we were faced with 40
degree heat and baking sunshine! I am a self confessed sun-worshipper and I
have S.A.D (Seasonal Affective Disorder), so it's fair to say I LOVE sunshine, however It had
been nearly a year since I had experienced those kind of temperatures when I
was in Salamanca at the start of the Year Abroad (And even then I don't think
the temperature rose above 30 degrees at the very maximum!) so at first I found
it hard to cope with, but I soon adjusted and enjoyed having the heat and
sunshine. In Pavia we still haven't really had those temperatures yet as I
guess we're a lot higher up in Europe than Seville which is nearly as far south
as you can get! I think the maximum we have had so far in Pavia is about 28
degrees, but I guess by June we'll be in the mid 30's! Here's hoping. Back to
Seville, anyway like I said we were pretty thirsty after walking around on top
of 'Las Cetas', so went to find a Montaditos bar which is a sandwich bar chain
all over Spain. We sat down outside in the sunshine opposite the University and
Siân
went inside to order a few mini bocadillos (small filled rolls) and some cold drinks, and managed to get the attention
of a group of Spanish lads whom she told her name was Lola! She then came back
outside and it wasn't long before they all joined us on our table! (Unfairly, blondes get all of the attention
in Spain- no es justo!) (It's not fair!). The lads had such strong Andalusian
accents which were very difficult for me to understand as I am used to pure
Castillian spanish! The southerners tend to drop the beginning and ends of
words, so 'Estoy en el autobus' (I am on the bus) sounds more like 'Sto nel
autobu' and 'Lista?' (Ready?) becomes 'Lita?'. It was almost like a different
language for me, and so difficult to understand! The lads also spoke Italian
though so I was actually able to communicate in some way!
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| Beautiful pink flowers in the University grounds |
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| Andalucian palms! |
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| A lovely 'Toro' painting I saw on a wall whilst wandering! |
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| The Cathedral |
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| The Plaza de España |
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| La Giralda bell-tower |
Siân
then had to abandon me for an hour whilst she had a class at the University
and I quite happily ambled around the city snapping pretty much everything in
my sight! (You might have all gathered by now that I love photography- check out those above which have been edited!). She
then joined me an hour later by 'La Giralda' bell tower in the centre where we decided to get a drink and chill out in the
sunshine watching the world go by with a beer. Soon Diane came along to join us
and it was so lovely too see her again! She just ambled up to the table looking
all the part Andalusian with her floaty long skirt and hat (The girl is so
bloody photogenic it kills me!) and we had another drink together before heading over to the Plaza de España! It was so
beautiful with fountains and so many flowers. Definitely a must-see in Seville!
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| The entrance to the Plaza |
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| Another view |
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| Diane and Me |
We
then wandered back to Siân's to freshen up before going out for a meal in the
evening. The girls chose one of their favourite restaurants in the Triana
district and we headed over there to relax for the evening. I chose a goats
cheese salad, Siân had a salmon salad, and Diane chose a meat dish. It was
quite funny though as a second or two after the waiter brought the drinks over,
whilst we were all looking at photos or something, Siân's glass miraculously
exploded, shattering glass over the table and all over her, whilst her drink
cascaded all over the table and over her new jeans. It was really strange as
the glass literally exploded.... We think that it might have just come out of
the boiling hot glass washer and then used for an ice cold drink seconds
afterwards, which caused the glass to expand and explode! Either way it was a
shock, but the waiter was so lovely about it and got us all new drinks in case
glass had shattered in them, (I was happy as I'd already practically drunk my
glass of coke!) he also brought Siân over a liquid which you spray onto fabric
and it removes stains! After the initial disaster, the meal was lovely and it
was nice to relax for a few hours. After finishing we wandered around for a
bit, but I especially was really tired from the lack of sleep the night before,
and of course the long day in the hot sunshine so we said goodnight to Diane,
and Siân and I went back to her's for the rest of the evening to relax.
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| La Giralda bell-tower |
Friday
morning I woke up quite early as I couldn't sleep very well because of the
heat, and soon after Sian woke up too, and we began to get ready for the day.
Diane came over to Sian's place, and waited whilst we finished getting ready.
Sian had to go to another class, so Diane took over the 'tour duties' and
marched me over to the centre where we ended up snapping away using my tripod
and camera. One thing I really wanted to do on this visit was to climb 'La
Giralda' which is the Cathedral's bell tower, as when I came to the city 2
years ago with Gemma, it was closed off for repairs. Climbing the 35 floors of
the tower was no easy feat though (It was gently sloped- no stairs!) and I
think poor Diane was about to die on the way up! I have to say though, the
effort and sweat (Yes, buckets of it) was worth it as the views were incredible
from the top, and like from 'Las Cetas', you could see for miles around! The
whole city seemed to be comprised of pretty whitewashed buildings in a somewhat
jumbled state! Diane and I had some fun taking photos at the top, and then soon
after we went down again into the cathedral which was a welcome cool break from
the outside heat! The Cathedral's courtyard I especially loved, full of pretty
orange trees and fountains.
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| Diane and Me |
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| Diane jumping by the Cathedral |
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| A view from the top of La Giralda over the Cathedral courtyard and Seville |
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| Another panoramic view from the top |
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| Diane and Me in the courtyard |
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| La Giralda taken from the courtyard below |
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| Me by the fountain and La Giralda |
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| Diane and Me by the Cathedral |
After
our Cathedral jaunt we then met up with Dan -Diane's boyfriend, who is staying
with her for the rest of her time out there, and the three of us tried to find
a restaurant which Siân wanted us to go to for lunch called 'Los Coloniales'.
The three of us arrived a few minutes before Siân who was late from her class,
and the menu looked so good! I was pleased to see it was vegetarian friendly
(Unlike most places in Spain!) and ended up ordering an amazing goat's cheese
dish and sharing a big salad and patatas bravas (chips in a spicy tomatoey sauce)
with the others. Siân and Diane both had chicken in a satay sauce and Dan had a
pork dish. The meal was incredible though; so cheap, and we were all pretty
satisfied afterwards!
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| My goats cheese dish on mini tostadas! |
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| The chicken satay dish with potato chips |
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| The salad |
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| Dan's pork dish with potato chips |
We went for a wander around the centre after lunch and then spontaneously decided on
visiting the 'Real Alcazar'
de Sevilla which is a beautiful medieval Islamic royal palace
containing a fusion of Spanish Christian and Moorish architecture. and I had been 2 years ago when I first visited the
city, but it's such a lovely place that I had no qualms in returning, plus the
others hadn't been in before even though they live in the city! It was really
pretty and I loved the gardens. There we lots of fountains and tall palm trees with pretty flowers and architecture. You felt like you were in some
tropical country, not in Spain!
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| Girls by the fountain |
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| In the Alcazar |
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| Diane and Dan by the main fountain |
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| Sian in the gardens |
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| Diane, Dan, Sian and Me by a fountian |
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| Sian and Me in the gardens |
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| All of us by a red rose garden |
We wandered around
for half an hour or so, and then we had to say bye to Diane and Dan as they had
to leave to go on a trip to Malaga for the weekend. Siân
and I stayed in the gardens for a while longer relaxing and enjoying the views
before parking up in a cafe by the cathedral for a drink! We then went back to
her's to freshen up again before heading out in the evening for a stroll and in
search of some tapas and sangria! It was lovely to see the city at night and so beautiful all lit up. The centre was buzzing, and we soon chose a cute little tapas
bar with seating outside on the street with a view of 'La Giralda' bell tower.
This tapas place was very vegetarian friendly and we ordered tortilla, patatas
Ali-oil (Chips in a mayonnaise
garlic sauce), olives and manchego
cheese, as well as a fish tapas for Siân. The sangria was fantastic and really strong, so
after a while we were feeling a bit tipsy and happy. We then went for a walk
around the Barrio Santa Cruz before choosing another bar for some more sangria and
a cheeky calamari tapas dish for Siân! As much as we wanted to stay out and find a club or
another bar, we had to wander (staggered more like) back to her place around
1am as I had to be up at around 7 to get the bus back to the airport for my
flight to Valencia at 9.
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| Sian and Me in the center |
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| Our tapas meal and the strong sangria |
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| The city center at night! (So pretty all lit up!) |
Saturday
morning we surprisingly managed to get up in time, and it was lovely as we
walked over to the centre as the sun was rising and I was able to get a
beautiful shot of the sunrise over the Guadalquivir river. I didn't like saying
bye to Siân, but I'd had such a lovely 2 days in Seville, and I know we'll be
in contact over the summer and that I'll see her in a few months when we're
back in Leicester for final year in September.
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| Sunrise over the river |
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| The Torre del Oro on the riverside |
VALENCIA
Next step on my trip was to fly over to the east
coast of Spain to the seaside city of Valencia where I was to spend a few days with
Kat. The flight went pretty quickly and was only around 50 minutes, and on
arrival we had some problems with communication as I was trying to call Kat's
phone using a Spanish prefix when I was unaware that she uses an English SIM
card which would have required an English prefix to the number! I had to call
Dad in England to ask for help as I just couldn't get in contact with her, and
eventually we came to the conclusion over the prefixes! An hour or so later after getting the tube into the centre, I met up with Kat and no longer felt so lost! On
arrival Valencia didn't seem what I had expected- in a good sense! I was
expecting a Benidorm-esque type city, and I was surprised to see that the centre was full of cultural buildings and not strip clubs!
We wandered back to Kat's place so I could leave my suitcase, and the first
thing that struck me about her place was the incredible panoramic view of the
city from the lounge and her bedroom. You could see for miles and all over the
dried up river bed which had been converted into pretty parks.
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| The view from Kat's room across the city |
As we were both
hungry, and when I had finished gazing at the view we went to grab some lunch in the centre, and ended going to Montaditos again. We had a table
outside in the sunshine and happily chatted away as we ate. Luckily the weather
in Valencia was sunny, but around a lovely 30 degrees unlike the baking
temperatures in Seville. After lunch we hopped on a tram to go down to the
beach which only took 15 minutes or so. The beach was incredible and just like
I was expecting! It was wide, sandy and seemed to go on for miles with palm
trees all along the front. We also saw some amazing sand sculptures of which I just had to snap a few photos as I'd never seen anything like it! The sunshine was lovely, and we spent the rest of
the day just relaxing on the sand. As the evening came in, we hopped on the
train back to Kat's where we relaxed for a bit, had showers and got ready to go
out in the evening for a meal.
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| Valencia's beach-front |
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| The beach |
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| Winnie the Pooh characters! |
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| Another sand sculpture |
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| Our evening meal |
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| The view from Kat's balcony at night |
We had a look around the centre, and eventually decided on a lovely Spanish looking
restaurant near the cathedral where we had a feast of a meal! It was far too
big for either of us to finish off, but it was lovely. We then ambled back to
Kat's and chilled on the balcony for a while admiring the view at night before
heading to sleep! I was once again knackered from the trip from Seville and the
fact that I didn't sleep well at Sian's because of the heat didn't help. I
slept for so long and didn't wake up until around 1pm on Sunday! Poor Kat was
up much before me, but she didn't want to wake me as she knew how tired I was!
I felt so much better when I woke up, and we headed into the centre
for a snack lunch before heading back to the beach again for the afternoon.
Unfortunately it was quite windy and the sand was blowing everywhere, so we
decided not to stay for long, and went
back to the centre to look around where there was a street market near the Cathedral. We had a look around, and it was mostly tat, but I found some cute little ceramic money-bank pigs that I fell in love with! Unfortunately as Kat spotted, they didn't have a hole to get the money out of again! - not so useful after all! We then fancied an ice cream, but Kat suggested going for a 'frozen yoghurt' dessert instead! Apparently it's a new craze in Spain and much healthier than ice cream! I agreed to try it as it looked pretty delicious as other people were eating it! We went to a shop called 'Smoöy' and fair enough, I can see why people love it! It's got the texture of ice cream, but is yoghurt based, and much healthier for sure. You could pick your toppings included in the price, so I went for chocolate sauce and cookies and Kat went for smarties and marshmallows.
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| The Cathedral |
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| Plaza Mayor |
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| Valencia's 'Plaza de Toros' - bullring |
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| The Cathedral |
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| The street market |
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| My cute ceramic piggies! (I had to have a photo!) |
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| The Smoöy counter full of toppings to choose from |
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| The yoghurt desserts! |
We
then went back to Kat's where we decided to try our hand at some cooking. We
popped into the fruit and veg corner-shop on the way back, and picked up some
mushrooms, an aubergine and some tomatoes, and had the idea to stuff the
Aubergine with couscous and a mushroom, onion and tomato sauce, and then have a
tomato and feta salad on the side. Neither of us had stuffed an Aubergine
before, so surprisingly it all went quite well and we had a real Moroccan-style
feast in front of us before we knew it- maybe we won't all starve after all in
final year in our house! Watch it Sian, Kat's the new female Jamie Oliver! We
then chilled out for the rest of the evening and watched some 'sex and the
city' episodes whilst chatting away.
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| Our Moroccan-style meal |
Monday
was my last day in Valencia, and Kat had to get up early to go to a French
class, so whilst she was at Uni, I was enjoying a lie in, followed by a shower
and pamper session! I even poached her gorgeous mint coloured nail polish-
sorry Kat haha! (It was too lush to resist!). I then met her and Emma Woolcott
who is another of Leicester's language gang in Valencia, and we all went for
lunch together. The girls had a 'menu del día' (Menu of the day) comprising of
pasta and a meat dish for seconds for Kat, and paella and a lasagne for Emma
followed by coffee, whereas I couldn't find anything that I could have on the
menu (oh vegetarianism can be a nuisance sometimes!), so I ended up choosing a
goat's cheese salad (yes, I have eaten a lot of goat's cheese on this trip!) and
some patatas bravas. I can say though that it was a fantastic idea as the salad
was honestly one of the best I have ever eaten!
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| My AMAZING salad |
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| Emma's Valencian paella |
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| Kat's spaghetti dish |
After
a long lunch chatting away, we decided to further wander around the city and
ended up going for another delicious frozen yoghurt dessert at a new place called Llaollao. This time I had a
chocolate sauce and cubes of mango on mine! We then had a look around some shops,
and then as we were having a drink on the piazza, we saw hundreds of people dressed up in traditional Valencian costumes which was a lovely sight! We tried to decide which dress colour we preferred, but undecided we agreed we loved them all! After a while enjoying the procession, we went back to Kat's where we watched the sun setting over
the city. In the evening we went out for a wander around again, and the city centre was packed with people on the Plaza Mayor for some kind of concert! We caught the tail end of it, and it was excellent live music! For our last meal together, we went to a small
tapas bar which served tostadas with different toppings. We had to wait a while
for the table as it was very busy, but soon were shown outside to a table on
the street where we could people-watch to our hearts' content! The tostadas were
lovely, but it was difficult to find vegetarian-friendly ones, and the waiter
seemed confused that I don’t eat meat or fish! We had a lovely meal with a
beer, and then headed back to Kat's for the night. I then woke up on Tuesday
morning early to make my way to the airport for my flight back to Milan which all went smoothly.
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| Typical Valencian costume |
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| Kat, Emma and Me |
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| Our frozen yoghurt desserts |
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| The sunset over the city |
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| The busy Plaza |
Right, well I think that's all from my recent adventures in Spain! Many thanks go to Sian, Diane and Kat for a lovely week, I had a really great time! I'll be back soon with a blog from spring in Italy! There is plenty happening over the next few weeks! I went to Torino in the north-west Piemonte region yesterday to see Sarah (This trip will be covered in my next blog!), Gemma my friend from home comes tomorrow for a week and we'll be travelling about quite a bit. Plans so far are to visit Milan, Bergamo, Lake Como/Garda and possibly the Cinque Terre in Liguria. My Mum is then coming out at the end of the month for a Venice trip with me, followed by a visit from my American friend Amanda, then Elizabeth; a friend from Leicester who I was in Salamanca with, and then lastly a trip from Flo at the end of the month. Busy busy busy! Ciaoooo from Pavia xxx Zoe
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