Sevilla & Valencia

Sevilla

First of all let me start off by saying it will be hard to ever top the beautiful photos and stories from Lagos but I will do my best to keep things entertaining!

Michael and caught a bus from Lagos to Sevilla and arrived at 9pm at night, we were surprised at how hot it was and that was one thing that never changed the whole time we were there – it was HOT!

We spent our first day in Sevilla wandering around and just checking out the sights, we walked along the river (which isn’t used for swimming in, even though it’s stupidly hot), which was a really beautiful walk. Lots of small coffee shops, food stalls and bars! We came back here a few days later and rode some bikes the entire length of the river but I didn't take any photos!

We walked past the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza, (in the photo below, top left) which is the major bull fighting ring in Sevilla. The whole time we have been in Spain we have been considering going to a bull fight for the experience but it’s doesn’t really appeal to either of us so we keep skipping it! The other photos are of the best sangria I have ever had! YUMM! Also, on the second day we were in Sevilla we discovered (to Michael’s delight) the Sevilla International Brewery, they have over 300 different beers, the list was crazy! I even got a raspberry beer!

From here we walked to the Sevilla Cathedral, which is the largest gothic church in the world! You had to pay to go inside so we just made do with walking around the outside, that place is seriously huge!

We also visited the Alcazar of Sevilla, aka the royal palace! This still functions as a royal palace and is the oldest royal palace still in use in Europe, they must hide the royals away somewhere or they must only holiday here though! Below is some pictures of the courtyards in the Alcazar as well as some of the crazy intricate designs on the on the roof of several rooms. 

The Alcazar itself wasn’t too shabby but the most impressive part was the huge royal garden behind the palace. We spent more time walking around the gardens then we actually did in the palace, I do love a good park visit!

The gardens were not only beautiful but HUGE!

We also spent some time at the Plaza de Espana, which is a huge plaza located within a park in Sevilla. This was probably the nicest plaza we have seen in Europe (they do love a plaza), usually they are crowded and surrounded by fancy restaurants but this one was really pretty and very quiet. 

There were heaps of people in little row boats on the water while we were here. 

The fountain in the middle also gave us a little spray which was great for a cool down!

I'm sure all the buildings surrounding the plaza are used for something but you can pretty much walk into any of them and onto the balconies without being questioned. 

Lastly we stopped and checked out the Metropol Parasol, some famous architectural landmark in Sevilla, the area it covers actually houses a market place!

Sevilla was a very beauitful city but there wasn't a whole lot happening there and it was so HOT! They need a giant outdoor pool there or something! Although we have noticed that Europeans don't seem to notice the heat, there is rarely a pedastal or ceiling fan in bedrooms (which is pretty much unheard of in Australia) and we are yet to stay anywhere with air conditioning! I don't know how they cope in the middle of summer cos Michael and I have been so hot and it's not even the height of summer yet!

Valencia

Valencia was another beautiful Spanish city – I think it would actually be a nice place to live; the central part of the city is full of pretty white high rise apartments, marble footpaths (YES) and fountains and is really clean! There weren’t masses of tourists here so not much English was spoken but we got around ok! The picture below is the view from our apartment, you can see the two main churches in Valenia, far right is the Valencia Cathedral and next to that is the Iglesia de Santa Catalina. It was a pretty nice view for a cheap room but the church bells seemed to ring endlessly overnight! Having said that one night we were treated to a view of fireworks from our room (doesn’t look like much in the picture but it was pretty cool).

On our first night in Valencia the girl we were staying with told us we should head out and check out the city as there was a big drum festival happening. We strolled out of our apartment at about 10pm on Saturday night only to find that there was a huge fun run happening right throughout the city! It was amazing, there were literally hundreds (if not more) of runners doing the fun run and huge crowds of people watching AND there were drummers on many of the corners playing crazy drum beats and cheering on the runners as they got to that corner - I recorded a short video (below).

A pretty cool monument on a roundabout we saw as we were follow the fun-runner around the city!

The atmosphere was amazing, there were heaps of people watching the runners and cheering them on! I have absolutely no idea where the runners had started or were finishing or what the fun run was for but we had a great time just following the crowd and watching everyone supporting the runners and getting into the drumming! This was probably my favourite part of Valencia and when we discovered that Spanish people are a little crazy.

We eventually found the festival, which was under a bridge in the park (sounds dodgy, right), it was FULL of people though (picture above, bottom right)! Having said that we kinda wandered through and there was a lot of weed and a lot of alcohol. In Spain at every public event or at the beach there are always guys wandering around selling beers in the street and it is probably highly illegal but it just seems to go ignored. We also saw a guy wandering around with a heap of weed on a plate and people would just go up and grab a pinch or a handful off his place and pay the named price – also highly illegal but drugs and alcohol seems to go kind of unnoticed here. We have definitely been asked if we want to buy weed more times than I can count, usually by a dodgy guy who kinda brushes past and murmurs “smoke?” just loudly enough for you to hear haha. I guess they are all kinda harmless cos they are happy to leave you alone once you say no and just wander off to the next person.

The next day we decided to visit the Aquarium, which is supposed to be the largest in Europe. To get to it you walk through an area called The City and Arts and Sciences, which is a collection of architecturally amazing buildings built amongst the main park of Valencia. Some of the buildings include the Hemisferic (like the IMAX), a science museum and the Oceanografico (aquarium). The area the buildings are built in is beautiful, the gardens are amazing and they are all surrounded by shallow pools with gorgeous clear water (we wanted to go for a swim so bad, it was so hot!).

More water we couldn't swim in!

Behind me is the IMAX centre and Science Museum.

The Oceanografico building (I think this section had some fish in it or something... haha)

We were lucky enough to catch a dolphin show while we were at the aquarium - yep, only a fancy aquarium hosts a dolphin show twice a day! The show was pretty cool, I forgot how smart dolphins actually are! They pretty much spent the whole time doing crazy jumps and tricks (in exchange for food of course!).

The rest of the aquarium was pretty cool too, we saw a walrus, which I thought was awesome cos I've never seen one before - they are HUGE! We also saw a Sea Canary (the real name is Beluga Whale but that's not as amusing...). We 

Unlike Sevilla, Valencia has a beach WOOOO!!

We headed down and spent a day at the beach (we had to walk 5km there and back to do this so I think it was well earnt).

It was much hotter then it looks!

We grabbed some lunch at one of the restaurants on the beach, which are renouned for being expensive. We decided to grab the menu of the day - this is a super popular thing in spain where restaurants will advertise a set menu for that day, usually you get a entree, main, drink and dessert for 8-15 euro depending on the place. We paid 11 euro each for one of the biggest meals I have ever eaten - below you can see the paella Michael and I had to share and this was the third of three courses!

We also managed to mistake 2 for 1 sangraias to be two jugs not to glasses! Whoops... although it kinda turned out ok becuase it was delicious sangria and we had a jug each! Just a casual drink with lunch!

We spent our last day in Valenia relaxing in the park - I do love a good park and this one was amazing! There was so many facilites including mini golf! Not a bad place to go for a run! The top right photo is of the coolest playground we have ever seen, its a giant lying down (you can see his head on the right).

Lastly I have added a few random photos of Valencia! A few pictures from the main market - meat and olives everywhere! Also us wearing the most ridiculous 'headphones' at the IMAX theatre! Also, check out the price for a bottle of jagermeister: 12 euro!!!

I hope this post hasn't been too bad following Lagos, we had a good time relaxing in both of these Spanish cities but cannot wait for more beaches (and hopefully some fans in our rooms!).