Granada to Seville

We left Granada as we arrived; in the rain. 

Granada has orange trees planted in public spaces. They're laden with fruit just now. Very pretty. Vicki's eyes lit up to this but Google tells us they're an unpleasant variety to eat.


Granada has nuns too. 

Our train journey to Seville was without incident. A Renfe Avant which is a regional train (250kmph max speed). I'd choose to travel by train in Spain again. Very smooth and comfortable and you get to see stuff out the window.

One of the features of train travel is that the stations are seldom in the "nice" part of town. We arrived to a slightly grimy Seville and moved through that to a beautiful ancient city as per the post cards. I'd hoped to recognize Seville station because I'm sure I spent a night in it as a young traveller. It's been modernized since then. I have zero recollection of Seville.

Our hotel is one of the oldest in Seville. It's 50 metres from Cathethral de Sevilla, in the middle of town. It has a central courtyard with a fountain and the rooms surround that. The only other time we have stayed in something similar was in Mexico travelling home with Kay many years ago. It's clean and comfortable and has a photogenic bathroom / toilet!


Kieran still has a cold but it's not stopping him from enjoying the beautiful Andelucean food.



Comments

  1. KayMF23 March 2025 at 04:16

    Oh that's fun ..... before reading your post, I was studying the photograph above of that beautiful internal hotel courtyard and musing that I had been somewhere like that before but couldn't think of where it might have been ... but, Mexico huh? Thank you for that memory from 1988!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

30 years and counting ..

It's been thirty years now since Vicki and I went for an offshore adventure like the one we are about to embark on. We thought we could share our experiences (good and bad) using this platform. We came to this decision following our trip to the book shop and deciding 1B5 was just...  Bags have been packed, weighed and re-packed and all contents are now "fully committed to" as we leave first thing on 4 March 2025 a.k.a tomorrow. Kieran
Read more

Singapore

Our day started just after 5:00 am. Singapore wasn't quite ready for us.  After breakfast we took our big bags to the airport and left them with the storage service. This gave us 14 hours until our flight (54 holes of golf?). We visited China town, had lunch, walked around Gardens by the Bay (in the rain), walked around the city (not in the rain) and eventually back to the airport. Singapore excels at food, shopping, tall buildings and public transport. We would definitely visit again. The locals are pretty relaxed and welcoming. It feels clean, safe, modern and a bit not-modern. Our hotel was in the Geylang area which felt non-touristic. Street markets sold cheaper everything and push bikes ruled the pavement. Fail 1. Our Wise card refused to tag off at one of the stations. The attendant just opened the gate for us as he quickly pegged us as non-locals. He said Wise cards had previous on their network. An unsolved mystery.
Read more

Alhambra

Image
Boarding our train in Madrid was more straightforward than Barcelona but not without it's challenges. Trains leave from three different platform levels. The information desk solved this problem for us. We arrived to rain in Granada but stuck to our backpacking and walked to the hotel. The receptionist was an ex-pat American and was very helpful in solving our planning oversight. We hadn't booked Alhambra. The no. 2 visitor hotspot in Spain apparently, just behind Sagrada Familia. I'd looked while we were in Madrid and the only online tickets were well after we left Granada. Anyway, the current pattern is that they periodically drop tickets. We were advised to check at 12:00am, much like booking a rock concert. I randomly checked for today and tickets had been released so we jumped on them.  My lasting memory from visiting Granada nearly 40 years ago with Kay and Sharon was that I wanted to visit again. Walking to and through the Alhambra did seem familiar. Our visit has bee...
Read more