Tapp's Travels

Sitting eating breakfast at our “rather cramped” Camping Villsom under palm  trees, we wonder just how far the oranges in the home-made marmalade we are spreading on our toast have travelled.  We are now just 10km south of Seville.  And “rather cramped” is euphemistic at best!

But at least there is a bus from outside the campsite to central Seville for 1.80€ each.  No need to search for parking, and, as a bonus, the driver actually knows where to find the centre of Seville!

We’ve come here especially to see and smell the orange blossom.

… and there’s plenty of it about!  In our enthusiasm to find it, we were up and showering in the dark and on the bus by 8am. It was so dark, Glenda couldn’t find the signs ended up showering in the mens’ block!

While delicately picking a couple of individual flowers to bring the aroma with us, a local rushed up and broke off a massive branch and presented it to Glenda.  It was embarrassingly large and had to be hidden in the rucksack in case we were arrested for damaging the trees!  My rucksack smells beautiful now though!

We signed up for the hop on, hop off bus and were on the first one as it set off at 10am.  Seville is a big city.  And, as it transpires, one with a large old centre with narrow streets and sunny squares.  Our first stop was a coffee stop, or more precisely a coffee and loo stop on Hercules Avenue.

There’s so much beautiful and interesting architecture.   Massive churches…

… and a huge cathedral…

Someone in the gardening department likes cubic trees.  I risked being “trammed” to get this photo:

The River Guadalquivir runs through the city.  Or to be precise, it used to.  Now the main flow passes in a canalised section to the west of the city. The bit we saw was more of a dead end branch.

We took a trip on the “river” in a boat which was advertised as electric and thus silent and eco-frirndly.  The petrol outboard was neither, but the trip was relaxing and there were just four of us on board.

Some views from the river…

The Navigation museum (which we visited later and found to be a very well laid out display of things nautical and navigational.  We “climbed” the tower,  using the lift and got panoramic views of the city.  We were impressed by the lighting displays which gave the illusion of waves sweeping around us – but this is hard to represent in a photograph.)

Back to the river views…

The Torre del Oro (Golden Tower) – named because of the original golden tiles which covered the tower.

Lots of superb views…

For lunch we picked Casa Carmen in Calle Santander.  A random selection – and, as it turned out, a great choice!  While Glenda was having a fine lunch…

I was meeting Carmen in the boys’ room…

She seemed surprised!

The bus tickets included entry to the aquarium,  which was superb (if a bit noisy – but it was a Sunday and a lot of children were visiting – and their parents were so loud!).

The final visit of the day was to the gardens and Palace of the Plaza de Españia.  A lovely public space with broad avenues, formal plantings, a large fountain, lots of horse-drawn carriages and a model parading her stuff for photographers!

So many things to be seen so many pictures.  Seville is a really good place to visit!

But now it’s time to relocate to Cadiz…