Sevilla Day 1

Cathedral of Sevilla

On Friday morning Katie and I took a 9 am train to Sevilla instead of going to class. In reality, I don't like missing classes, but since it was a holiday weekend here in Spain, the only trains available were 9 am and 11 pm. The decision there was pretty easy.

One of the bells in the bell tower.

We arrived in Sevilla at 11:30 and took a hearty jaunt to our hostel (i.e. we walked from the train station). We checked into our room, dropped off our bags and went up to the rooftop terrace to eat lunch and enjoy the 80+ degree weather. Needless to say, I did get a tan. After we were full and rested we decided to head out on our first adventure. We rented bikes from the hostel and headed out toward the cathedral.  Once we found our way there we parked our bikes and found the cathedral entrance. The price to get in was only 2€ for students AND you were allowed to take pictures WITH FLASH (unlike in 99% of the other churches in Spain). We climbed all 34 ramps to the bell tower, named Girlada. It's 343 feet tall and has without a doubt the best views of Sevilla. We were even up there when the clock struck 4 and the bells rang. On the way down we kept informing people how far they had to go so they wouldn't be wondering like we did.

View from the top of the bell tower. 

After visiting the cathedral we checked out the times for the Alcazar which is located right across the street. It closed at 5:30 and it was already 4:45, and we knew we needed more time for that so we decided to put it off until the next day.  We jumped on our bikes and rode to this store my grandfather had recommended I visit. Both of us ended up buying some awesome souvenirs. Then we biked down to the river to check out the price of boat tours down the Guadalquivir River. They were 15€ so we decided to put it on our list of things "to consider." Then we checked to see if there were any bullfights happening while we were there. Unfortunately, the last one was on Tuesday the 12th and we were only in Sevilla until Sunday.

Our bikes next to a fallen orange tree!

After that we rode our bikes back to the hostel and took a nap. It was 9 o'clock when we woke up, and by that point we were hungry. We went on a search to try to find some bread and fruit to eat with the meat Katie's señora had given her for the weekend. We walked everywhere and there was no bread and barely any fruit. So we asked for a restaurant suggestion at the reception desk.  The man gave us the name of a restaurant that was close to the hostel. So we walked there and discovered that it was a 25 + minute wait. We could not wait that long, so we went to the restaurant right across the street and had some tapas and wine (well, I had wine, Katie had coke). Finally we went back to the hostel and called it a night.