Tag: andalusia

Portugal & Southern Spain – Day 13 & 14 – 22nd & 23rd of May – Seville and Back to the Algarve.

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After such a busy day celebrating Johns birthday we were slow starting the day on Thursday. After a leisurely breakfast we wandered the maze of tiny cobbled streets to our favourite hotel…..at this point I must say if you’re going to Seville we thoroughly recommend The Saville Hotel Centre- looking the price up for our 3 nights we found an apartment was false economy, the hotel would only have been €30 extra and would have included breakfast…you live and learn. ….John dropped the rubbish off at a municipal refuse area ( as required by the apartment) and we hailed a taxi. €7 later we were outside the cathedral. We queued about 30 minutes and then bought tickets €14 for me and on the production of Johns passport €7 for proving he was over 65.
The cathedral is absolutely beautiful. We wandered around foe a couple of hours, delving into every nook and cranny, saying a few prayers in various chapels and enjoying the splendour of this religious treasure.

On leaving the cathedral at its rear end we wandered across the road to a taxi rank. On spying a tourist gift shop we browsed an purchased a Seville t-shirt for John and a flamenco style hair group for me…..then would you believe it we caught sight of the bottle of Orange wine, my son, Jak had been asking us to get him.

Grabbing a taxi we headed across to the oldest part of Seville, not far from the theatre we had been to the day before. Jak had told us of a restaurant he really rated.

El Rinconcillo is the oldest restaurant/bar in Seville and it is totally heaving in character. We had to queue to get in. Jak had said the tapas were amazing, it seemed plenty of others agreed with him. However the tapas is served with you standing at the barrels which we didn’t really want to do. So we managed to blag a table in the restaurant on the same level as the tapas and bar. The waiter spoke superb English. The place had the same high class food and seeped with history as Rules in Covent Garden London has …so we were delighted and intrigued. We had some nice fish…not certain what it was but it was divine and followed it with coffee cake. The kind waiter pored me a taster of Orange wine so I knew what we had bought Jak. Altogether it was a lovely lunch.

We got a taxi back to the apartment before having a leisurely siesta…..we really had, had a nice time in Seville. Another famous city to tick off our list.

The following day we packed up, said goodbye to our apartment and dragged our cases along the cobbles to the carpark. A kindly gentleman translated the ticket machine for me and I had soon paid the €56 for the 3 days parking. We set the cars sat nav up to take us to Albufeira….it managed to get us out of Seville without taking us down any tiny roads for which I was very grateful.
We arrived at our next apartment Sun & Serenity which was on the Balaia Da Mar hotel grounds….there are lots of privately owned apartments on hotel complexes in Portugal. The hotel receptionist kindly spoke to the agent in Portuguese and told us we were too early. An hour later we were allowed to go to the apartment. We met the lady and she had brought a young g English speaking man with her. Well!!!!! What can we say….pictures do lie ….it didn’t have a balcony …the view was through a window…ok we can live with that, there was a bit of a divider between the lounge, kitchen area and the bedroom…but basically all one room and the bathroom was very bijou……the shower door opening just enough to squeeze in sideways…one boob at a time so to speak….. the loo was behind the door but ok it was livable with….but!!!!! The whole window ( the only window in the place) was covered in hundreds of fleas…..umm…..they knew I meant business when I said “NO” after a three way discussion for nearly 30 minutes we agreed to wait 2 hours, if they got rid of the fleas ( evidently to recent wet then hot weather had caused an influx throughout 5he area but they only last a couple of days) we would stay and if not they would “try!!!!” To get us a refund…..those of you who know me will understand that I made it very clear that I was not amused. However 2 hours later the lady came back with plug in repellents and sprayed and it did do the trick…it certainly exterminated them immediately…..I’ve been using the spray ever since…. So we are in this pleasant enough hotel complex, the view from the window is of lush gardens and magpies chasing seagulls…it’s very green and nothing really to complain about. We went across the road to the Balaia Golf resort for supper. I had stayed there many years ago. The food was very nice at a reasonable price so it will become our go to place…..next to it is a Spar supermarket where we stocked up on water and breakfast goods….Another excellent day on our road trip.

Portugal & Southern Spain Trip – Day 11 & 12 – 20th & 21st of May 2025 – Seville

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Breakfast at Hospederia El Cazadero Real was the best we’d had so far…at last !! Soft bread rolls, yogurt, fruit, cold meats and preserves…..wow last nights splendid supper and the hotel breakfast was beginning too make up for the rather poor food we had been eating since arriving in Spain. Feeling replenished we set of to Seville. Thank you El Rocio for a great experience…an adventure to be remembered.
Arriving in Seville we followed our Google maps and went wrong. We stopped outside Hotel Seville Centre and the charming doorman reprogrammed us. We found where we were staying….but the less said about the next couple of hours the better…..My ever loving, patient husband did his best to keep me calm …..the cobbled roads were narrow and cars parked down one side, so I literally inched our large SUV down them and took no notice of the crazy Spaniards peeping behind me. When we found our street I didn’t need to worry because it was so narrow no cars were parked I just had to miss the bollards and the buildings…looked more like a narrow footpath than a road….The property agent turned up an hour later and told us we could park in the apartments underground carpark…..are you joking or what….try as I may I couldn’t get the car through the gate it was just too big. The following day I saw the smallest 2 door BMW go into it and it took them 3 attempts to inch it in, so I felt better about refusing to continue to try. Lola the agent kindly came with us to the public above ground carpark where there was plenty of space it just meant we had to drag our cases a few hundred yards.
The apartment is on the second floor, looking into a courtyard. Luckily there was a lift. It is roomy and has everything we need…it’s a bit dated and one might describe it as “ shabby -Chic” . Although personally I’d just call it shabby. We spent a few hours resting before going in search of a supermarket, on foot!!! I asked a young couple who sent us on a short walk which took us to a grocery shop opposite the Seville Hotel Centre. We purchased enough groceries for breakfasts and that nights evening meal…..John provide the packhorse service by lugging it all back to the apartment. An early night was required, to get over the narrow street incident…..

May 21st- Johns birthday. We started the day slowly with press and cards and breakfast …

We then walked to the hotel. We found a lovely helpful receptionist, Judith, who gave us a map, circled where we were, where the Cathederal was, where the boar trips go from and where the Flemenco dance show was. We then purchased boat tickets, for €20 each, and theatre tickets, for €23 for me and €18 for John, from her….what a star…..

I had already booked a table in the hotels 13 th floor panoramic view restaurant for the evening. If you’ve got deep pockets and want a really nice hotel I would choose this one…. the doorman, receptionist and waiter couldn’t do enough for us and their English was excellent.

Across the road from the hotel is a taxi rank. A €5:60 taxi ride took us to the Cathedral square. There was a big queue and seeing as there were horse and carriage there we decided to leave the Cathedral until later and take horse & carriage instead. We agreed the €45 price and our driver would point the sights out to us in English…so off we went…

I must say, both our driver and our horse were cheery chappies…..A beautifully groomed, healthy looking horse, with pricked ears denoting happiness and a whinny for all his mates as he passed them. We went past the Houses of Parliament. Palace, university, opera house, statues etc as well as into the main park which was very beautiful.


Our tour lasted about one and a half ours….it really is a lovely way to sightsee. We thanked our driver and his horse…

We decided to leave the cathedral until the next day because there was still a queue and we wanted to fit the boat trip in before the theatre. It was quite a walk to the river but we made it intime to get the 2.00 pm boat. The commentary was in Spanish and English so we understood what we were seeing….some was the same as we’d just seen from the carriage but there were lots of bridges, buildings erected in 1992 for the EXPO’92. Lots of interesting sights whilst enjoying the river…

Disembarking after our 1 hour cruise we ambled along towards the theatre. We stopped at a rather posh street cafe/restaurant for a much needed drink and a shared seafood salad.

The walk to the theatre was quite along way, through the maze of pedestrianised cobbled streets in the heart of the old town. We exchanged our vouchers for tickets and had a drink in the bar….wow…what a show it was…

The show was superb but not what we had expected…the Spanish dancing was highly aggressive almost verging on intimidating, there was nothing quiet or gentle or loving about it but ir was certainly very passionately performed. After the show we took a €13 taxi ride back to the apartment. We had just enough time to shower and change before heading back to the hotel for supper… The restaurant only had about 6 tables and a super view across the city..The food was very nice, I had prawns on glass noodles and John had hake on polenta. We rounded it off with crème caramel and coffee ice cream. Not overly expensive, the bill including drinks and a tip was €76. The view as the sun went down was spectacular….

As we waddled back to the apartment we had full tummies and tired legs….my little legs had walked 10,996 steps and I was ready to fall into bed. Happy Birthday my darling husband, what a wonderful day we had filled with adventures, creating many happy memories.