Wednesday 3/9 Exploring Seville

We got up and headed out to do some exploring. There seemed to be a bit to look at in Seville, and we were in the mood to see as much as we could. We started off and made our way out and down our street, towards some gardens.

We walked through and saw a big column, whilst singing some Arcade Fire tunes. The walk was extremely quick considering the distances on the map. In fact, we had walked completely past where we were aiming to reach in the first place.

We made our way into a building which we though was an old something, but it turned out to be one of the buildings of the university (go figure, a university building in Seville...). We thought it would have been a good idea to bring our books and sit there one day, and make ourselves blend in as students.

We made our way to the Plaza Espania, and initially walked just about 360 degrees around it tryin to find where we could get in to the main courtyard place. It was quite a nice placel clearly with some Moorish influence in the design.

Here's a geeky tidbit. There was something very familiar about the place, and then it struck me. There was a scene in one of those new Star Wars films that was shot here. How good am I to pick that out?! Or, yes, well, a bit geeky too.

We headed back via a tower thing, Torre de Orro, beside the river. We didn't go in, and just sort of stared and took some pics because it was one of the things on all the tourist pamphlets.

We then headed towards the big cathedral, or church, which was a strange combination of different styles and influences. We sat on some steps and ate some self-made sandwiches filled with cheese and turkey (a winning combination in my books).

After dinner back at the hostel we headed out to see a free Flamenco show tucked away at a bar in the middle of suburbia, though quite near to our hostel. We made our way through the maze of streets and finally found the place, and sat down. We were both a bit sleepy but really wanted to find this and see it because we hadn't seen a Flamenco show yet in all our time in Spain.

The show started quite late; almost an hour. It was worth it though. There were three on stage: the guitarist, the dancer and the singer. The guitarist was great, with fingers that conquered the strings of his instrument and sent out beautiful classical Spanish sounds. The singer was beyond words, sitting there and releasing powerful and completely emotional lyrics from his house. The dancer was fantastic as well. She did the whole foot stomping and hand clapping thing. The show was really something to be seen, and it was free!