Easter Week in Seville

Seville, Spain

We took the bullet train from Madrid and arrived in Seville a little after noon. The hotel wanted 18 euros a day for internet access so I write everything in Word and then go to a sandwich shop with WIFI to post to my blog.

The hotel gave us a city map that had the top oriented to the west so we walked for about an hour away from the center city. We ended up in an area of high-rises for the less affluent that Mrs. Phred called “the projects”. It kind of reminded me of all the dead German tourists who take a wrong turn into Liberty City on the way to Miami Beach.

We saw a young man who was standing on the corner and yelling something at a passing pretty girl. He had lots of tattoos and metal things in his face so I asked him for directions. He seemed angry at me for some reason, so we asked two other nicer young men who advised us to take bus number “TRES. UNO…, TRES, UNO”. We caught that bus and circled though the projects for an hour or so, but at least it was air-conditioned.

Eventually the bus passed a big palace in our guide book that we recognized, so we got off and found a place to buy a better map. The inner city is a maze and we get lost every two minutes but always end up somewhere interesting. Seville has lots of pretty places, palaces and the largest Gothic cathedral in the world.

After hours of wandering and many stops for tapas, we met Sedan from Senegal. He played us a song on a home-made instrument made from a large dried pumpkin. Sedan has four children back in Senegal to whom he sends all the money he makes as Street artist. Sedan speaks English, French, Spanish and Italian.





We are in the middle of Easter Week where tens of thousands dress up in black robes and pointy black hats every day for parades. These are very scary outfits. You wouldn’t want to be a false convert in the Middle Ages and have someone come after you dressed like this with a pair of pincers and a red hot poker.









We take the train to Cordoba and back tomorrow and then have one last day to wander in Seville before picking up a car from Avis. I hope it has a GPS. I’ve been getting lost a lot lately.



Seville is a lovely, ancient city.