Off to Sunny Seville

It was an early morning today, we were up before the dawn. We really enjoyed our stay but we must be moving on. Like a king without a castle and a queen without a throne, early morning travellers and we must be moving on*. Our walk through the deserted streets was a lot quieter than the previous similar foray due to well layed polished granite sidewalks. Arriving at the Central train station as it opened it quickly became apparent that our long anticipated train journey was to be replaced by a bus due to infrastructure works. However, as it transpires, it made no difference as it was dark, the bus made no stops, is was extremely comfortable and we got to our transit station at the planned time. Wondering why the train exists at all we sat around in a modern station in the middle of a Spanish plain and finally realised that sunrise is about 8:30 am. No wonder all the Spanish have wierd internal body clocks.

Here the trains were functional and we shot off though the early morning haze rising over the desert like a cannonball..*. The environment here is a dry harsh landscape. You tell that by looking at the soil. Interestingly the locals have turned the whole thing green by planting olive trees. Millions and millions of them. There are more olive trees than you can poke a stick at...and that is a serious amount of trees. The amount of olives resulting from these endeavours must be mind blowing. It does nicely resonate that when drinks are served in the taverna's and bars that frequent the cities that they are invariably accompanied by a sample dish of olives. They literally have so many they give the away for free. And then there's the oil..... The train ride to Seville was comfortable, fast, efficient and quiet until some very loud elderly Spanish came on and promptly spent the the rest of the trip yelling at each other. It was more funny than unpleasant. Their language is not as harsh as some at at least we were not in any position to pass judgement on the content of their conversation. An easy taxi ride you our rooms for the next 3 nights was insightful. Very small tight roads. Best stay out of the way of cars in these streets. In one short burst we had the mirror on on side hit a dude who was not paying attention and then a rubbish bin on the opposite side. So by the time we arrived the driver was restricted to internal mirror only as both externals were folded flat. The hotel is a complete contrast to the modern one we just left. Will probably miss a bidet for the rest of my life, however a more realistic contrast is the Moorish influence in the designs, furnishings and general ambience e.g. our room door faces into the general foyer. It's well appointed though so we're happy and comfortable. Location wise it's pretty good too. The goodbye strangers* start had us feeling like we'd be hit by a bus - not carried by one. So grabbing a quick bite of nachos for lunch ( where we had our first bad food experience of the trip. 6 Euro's is a small price to pay for a lesson well learnt - in this case it's don't eat at the joint around the corner. Funny thing we will now walk past this guy repeatedly over the next few days) Siesta time....really getting the hang of this. There's no point heading out in the heat of the afternoon as everything is shut. May as well catch up on lost debt. So snooze we did. Easy to do as of course even the builders next door went quiet. Afterwards we headed out into town at 5:00 pm as the place slowly came to life.

It's kind of nice not having any real plans when exploring a new city. One vague focus we had was to hunt down our ebike tour company that we'd used in Granada. In finding them we managed to wander through a few interesting sections of the town. It gets seriously hot here. Luckily we've missed the 56 degrees days (yowsa!) And it's a mild 32 today. They have strung up seriously big shade cloths over the streets to keep the place bearable in summer. It's a different vibe to the other two locales seen so far. It may take a day or two to be able to understand and articulate it.

We did have a great time relaxing in the old part of town. Lots of sitting on street side tables consuming local produce whilst the non-blogger darted in and out of nearby shops. Meeting a relaxed group of like minded northern English was funny. They were here for a long weekend. Interesting contrast. They go to Spain in two hours. We go to the local beach in that same timeframe. There is of course no real comparison. They see flamingco dancers, we see waves dancing. They get surrounded by manmade architecture being used to express individuals application of power and we get surrounded by the architecture of nature expressing the power of the universe. Both are valid. It's nice to be familiar with both aspects. A stroll back through the building throngs after sunset you could feel the vibe of the town starting to pick up. We were too exhausted though to consider kicking on. Maybe tomorrow night. For now a fabulous ice cream was a great ending to a tapas dinner and an interesting day in bull fighting territory. * Apologies to any Supertramp fans