A Travel Blog
We spent five weeks in Spain in late 2017, including a month in Seville and a week in Granada. We also took day trips to Córdoba and the Pueblos Blancos.
Our time in Seville is dwindling. Since our last post of photos from around La Macarena neighbourhood where we are staying we’ve become even more familiar with this quieter area full of low-key cafes, bars, art spaces, independent boutiques and markets
There’s an art school around the corner from the apartment called Centro de Arte Acción Directa. Through the door we can see sculptures in progress and people painting on easels.
This week we discovered a couple more good places to eat and drink near our place in Seville.
Bar Ajoblanco is a quirky little place that sells vinyl records, VHS tapes and Tex-Mexish food. We tried some tacos and enchiladas along with an order of nachos and guac.
Seville is a city with no shortage of luxurious Andalusian palaces to wander through. This week we visited Casa de Pilatos (“Pilate’s House”) and filled our cameras.
We chose our apartment partly based on its proximity to Mercado de la Feria, the oldest market in Seville.
The market is located alongside the oldest church in Seville, the magnificently named Omnium Sanctorum, which dates to the 13th Century.
Very close to our apartment in La Macarena is the Alameda de Hércules or just La Alameda. It was built in 1574 and named after the eight rows of white poplar trees (álamos) in the centre.
There are two giant Roman pillars at each end of the Alameda. One pair is topped with statues of Julius Caesar and Hércules, who according to the legends, were the two founding fathers of Seville.
If you research tapas bars in Seville, it won’t be long before El Rinconcillo is mentioned. It’s hard to skip a place that has been open since 1670 and is as old as the tradition of tapas itself.
The current owners — the De Rueda family — have operated the business from this same location since the 1850’s, with each new generation taking over from the previous.
At the southern end of Seville, just inside the vast Maria Luisa Park, is the imposing Plaza de España.
This collection of architecture was constructed for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition World’s Fair and was designed to showcase various types of regional and historic Spanish architecture.
Our Airbnb apartment is in an area of Seville known as La Macarena.
The neighbourhood is most famed for its Basílica de la Macarena and a long stretch of the original murallas, or protective city walls that date to Roman times.
Seville has no shortage of beautiful and photogenic sites. The Palacio de las Dueñas, tucked away in a residential neighbourhood not far from our apartment, is one of those.
This complex is much smaller in scale than the vast Alcázar we explored on the weekend, but it shares a similar aesthetic with intricate Mudéjar architecture, arched patios, and lush gardens of fountains and citrus trees.
On Sunday we had lunch at Bar Alfalfa, a tiny nook of a tapas bar near Seville’s Plaza de la Alfalfa.
This neighbourhood is only 10 minutes by foot from our apartment, but it was the first time we’d wandered through.
The Real Alcázar (Royal Alcazar) in Seville is a Royal Palace constructed by a succession of Moorish Kings beginning around the year 913.
It is now a sprawling complex of beautiful buildings, gardens, fountains, and baths, and is one of the most visited sites in Seville. The royal family still uses some of the upper levels as an official residence.
The Seville Cathedral (formally the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede) was constructed on the site of a former mosque beginning in 1401. It took roughly 100 years to build and is considered the largest Cathedral in the world (but not the largest church — it’s complicated).
From the outside, the Cathedral has the feeling of a fortress, with solid stone walls rising on all sides. It is intimidating rather than welcoming despite the ornamentation that hints at what is inside.