Seville – First Impressions

There’s a lot to see here.  In the next six weeks, we will see and learn as much as possible and also have time to visit other towns in this part of Spain on a day trip or even an overnight stay.

First, let’s talk a little about Spain.  Spain and Portugal, that roundish land mass at the tip of southern France is called the Iberian Peninsula.  We are now in the south of the Iberian Peninsula.  The weather is still warm here in Seville on October 29, but it is set to cool just a bit next week.  Evenings and early mornings are cool, in the low-sixties but rise to mid-eighties mid-day for just a few hours.  Next week we expect temperatures that are ten degrees cooler for highs and lows.  The sky is clear and has that glorious Spanish blue tint.  The nighttime skies have been clear for the last few nights.  Stars are out but the glow of the city lights keeps us from seeing their splendor.

In this part of the world, Iberian Jamon (ham), a cured pork leg, is very special.  Huge golden, but dried-looking legs still bearing black hoofs hang from racks in charcuteries and most restaurants in every city in Spain.  The ruby-red Jamon is made from the rare-breed, Black Iberian pig whose diet is mainly acorns and grass.   Iberian Jamon is quite expensive, from about $400 up to $4,000 for a whole leg depending on the size and quality.   It is sliced lengthwise by razor-like knives from a stainless steel contraption with vices that holds the leg in place for carving.  Iberian ham is produced only in a few districts in Spain and Portugal and goes through a salt-curing process for two to four years.  Tiny slices are most often served as tapas, entrée (first plate), and sandwiches, it is always available on a charcuterie board along with Spanish olives and cheeses.  Iberian ham is never cooked and it is illegal for tourists to bring it into the United States.  That’s no problem, Stan and I have not yet cultivated a love of this salty, tough, strong-tasting, prized Iberian delicacy.

I have mentioned before that typically restaurants in all other cities in Spain offer a “menu del dia” which includes a drink, bread, a first choice, a second choice, and dessert for a fixed price.  It is a lot of food!  Ordinarily, we would never order so much food but that’s what you get here.  I try to skip the French fries which seem to accompany almost everything, but sometimes, I just eat them.   Here in Seville, most restaurants offer tapas.  Not like tapas restaurants in Atlanta where tapas dishes arrive at the table in the size of those cafeteria-style melamine bowls of stuff, tapas here are more generous and varied!  Order three and that’s a full meal for two that costs 4.50 Euros per tapa plus a drink (vino, cerveza, o agua).

The country of Spain has seventeen autonomous communities (similar to states).  When in Barcelona, the community is Catalonia.  In Madrid, it is Castile and Leon.  When we were in Santander, we were in Cantabria.  In Santiago de Compostela the community was Galacia.  Toledo is the capital of Castile La Mancha community and now we are in Andalucia where Seville is the capital. Each community is self-governed and has its own unique culture and personality.   In The Legend of El Cid on Amazon Prime, the story is set in Leon in about the year 1065.  One brother is the king of Leon and the other is the king of Zaragoza in the Aragon autonomous community.  The brother from Zaragoza seeks to have his brother killed to add Leon to his realm.  The setting and scenery are authentic.  It’s Spain.

My first thoughts about Seville when we first arrived were all wrong. Wrong!  While I have so much more to learn, I will just say this, for now, Seville is a city of 1.3 million people.  It is a major city in Spain and it is fantastic: 

To add more, I’m just going to borrow some verbiage because it sums it up: 

“Seville – “Sevilla” in Spanish – is the largest city in the south. It is located in Andalucía, a major region, and a lot of Spanish culture origins from here.

To this day, Seville is still one of the most influential in Spain. With a population that edges close to 1,3 million, just slightly behind the coastal city of Valencia, it is also one of the largest. Measured by these metropolitan statistics, it ranks as number four in Spain.

Seville has hot weather. It is a very walkable city with plenty of attractions, most of them being old. The architecture of Seville is very interesting and appealing. It is a big reason why it is one of the most liked cities in southern Europe by travelers.” (https://spainguidenow.com/largest-cities-in-spain/)

We often use a very handy app, especially when we are in larger cities, GPSMyCity.  It has a modest annual subscription fee but it offers self-guided walking tours on the phone with walking directions from place to place and includes all the info about the place one might be seeing.   We did the City Introduction Walk yesterday which took us to Plaza de Espana – what a huge and amazing place.  It has a row of alcoves that honor each of the 57 major autonomous communities and cities in Spain.  This wonderful place was designed by a woman architect, Anibal Gonzales, and created in 1929 to celebrate Ibero-American Exposition, designed to renew friendships and trade relations between Spain and the USA.  Next, we saw University de Sevilla, formerly the Royal Tobacco Factory.  If snuff or a Spanish cigar was bought in Europe between 1758 and 1950, it was made here in this place.  Blame Seville on your nicotine addiction.  This place might have started it all.  As a note, the title character in the opera Carmen was a cigarrera in the Royal Tobacco Factory.

From there we went to El Alcazar – we have tix to tour this premier palace in Seville in a few days.  Our main purpose today was to merely get a handle on things we should spend more time with later in our trip.  We did not tour any place, we just learned where they are and began setting our priorities.  We walked past the Seville Cathedral – again a place we will tour on another day, but oh, is it a fabulous construction! And it has a tower we must climb.  Next, we found Museo del Baile Flamenco, — I hope we go there to see a performance!  Then we walked to Casa de Pilatos – home of Don Fadrique Enriques de Rivera built to resemble the place where Pontius Pilot may have been buried in the Holy Land.

Oh, glory, what a sight!!  We turned a corner and there was Centas de Sevilla! (Metropole Parasol)   People here call this place, The Mushroom.  The story goes:  the city wanted to build a parking deck in 1990.  As construction began the workers found ancient ruins and artifacts from the Roman and Moorish eras.  Construction stopped and in 2004 the City resumed the project.  The Mushroom was constructed of all Danish wood and is a stunning aerial attraction and entrance to the Museo de Artifacts.  This place is on our must-do list.

Our path home across the Rio Guadalquivir took us via Calle Cierpes (The Snake Street).  For purely pedestrian traffic, this street is THE shopping street in Seville.  If you want it, you can find it here!

We are taking a break today . . . just relaxing by the pool and listening to our books, that is after we visit a nearby carniceria to purchase a nice steak for dinner at home tonight.