It was a short 2 1/2 hour train ride from Madrid to Seville’s Santa Justa train station. I was sitting next to a very chatty Spanish guy, but I didn’t mind, cause it was nice to actually chat to someone who could speak English and he also knew quite a lot about Seville, so he gave me some good tips.
From the train station, I decided to just walk to my hotel (risky I know – but I had checked it out on Google maps before hand and it seemed totally doable). And luckily it was. A short 15min later I arrived at Hotel Don Paco (which I had booked through Booking.com). The hotel wasn’t much to look at from the outside and my room was pretty basic, but spacious, neat & clean:
With a “view”… well kinda:
Hmmm… definitely not sexy…
BUT I was only paying 49.5 euros per night… AND the hotel had a pimpin’ rooftop terrace with great views, a pool, a bar and little restaurant area:
Not too shabby hey? Loved that pool area… I ended up spending quite a bit of time there. It was such a nice escape after a day of exploring. Seville gets quite hot in summer and there’s no beach. It also stays really hot (like you can still get a serious tan, hot) until like 7-8pm. So I can highly recommend a hotel that has a pool.
As far as the area where I was staying goes, it was really very good. I was about a 5min walk from the main shopping area (whoop whoop!), lots of great bars & restaurants, as well as their Antiqvarivm which is this hectic, huge wooden arbor created by a German architect, and something that’s quite incredible to see…
Seville’s major sights was probably all about a 15 – 20min walk (max) away, so this was a city where I really didn’t need to use any form of public transport at all, and I really loved that.
Now when I was reading up about southern Spain (known as Andalusia, with Seville as it’s capital), I read all about flamenco dancing, bullfighting, Moorish architectural influences (they were folks from North Africa), Jerez wines (we know it as sherry), their selection of hams & olives as well as azulejos which are these beautiful glazed ceramic tiles used in Seville on walls as a decorative feature, for street names & advertising, as well as inside grand palaces and other buildings as a wall covering. So how excited was I when I didn’t even have to look very hard to spot them, you literally see them everywhere… This is what I spotted during only my first few hours there:
It really just added that extra special something to this city and it was like I had been transported back to a magical, historic time, which got me very excited about all the other exploration that was still on the cards…
xxx