Our 5 weeks of holiday was almost over. We had just 2 more days in Seville before we left to return home.
We were all up early and, after breakfast, we walked up to the nearest stop for the Hop on/Hop off bus which turned out to be the 2nd last on the route. The representative of the bus line was a lovely young lady from an Eastern European country who had come to Spain and lived in Seville for 5 years.
Having boarded the bus, we passed the final stop of the route and continued to the beginning of the route beside the river. The bus stopped and the driver got out, but didn’t make it clear that the bus would only be leaving after25 minutes. If we had been informed, we could have hopped off and looked around the area. The bus was parked in the sun and it was very hot. We learnt later that Seville is the hottest city in the country. It was going to get hotter before we left Spain in 2 days.
Once we were on our way, we had a very interesting drive around parts of Seville. We had agreed that we would get off the bus at Stop 2 for the Plaza Espana. We had walked from the ship to the Plaza entrance yesterday but didn’t go to see it. We had stood and watched as horses and carriages carried other tourists on sightseeing trips around the area.
The Plaza was absolutely amazing. It is within the Maria Luisa Park, which itself huge, with 3 or 4 sections on either side of a main road. of this the Plaza covers a space of 50 0002m which includes a 515m long canal. Even though it was hot, it was a beautiful day and the canal was quite busy, with boats being sailed up and down. There were 4 towers which represented the ancient kingdoms of Spain. The building itself is like a palace and there are marble mosaics of each of the provinces of Spain. It was built for the Ibero-American Exposition in 1929.
Granda’s mosaic
We spent over an hour at the Plaza before getting back onto a bus to go to the Cathedral. Even when we did arrive there, it still required a bit of a walk, as the Cathedral is within the Old Quarter into which the bus couldn’t go. Before going to visit the Cathedral, we went to a favourite restaurant of my cousin, for a late lunch. On one wall there was very strange artwork. From a distance it appeared indecipherable but up close the picture could be seen clearly.
We had a nice lunch but the others were disappointed as it was not as good as they had always experienced. By then it was getting late to spend time at the Cathedral, so we agreed to visit the area the following day.
Trevor and I said that there were a couple of stops where we would have liked to spend some time and the other 2 said that they wanted to go downtown. We returned to the bus stop, the closest of which was Stop 1. There were a couple of buses waiting so we boarded the one at the front. After waiting for a while we were told that it was not waiting just the usual 25 minutes but a total of 40 minutes of which it still had 20 to go. This was because something had happened to one of the buses and so the timing had to be adjusted. We decided that it would be too long, would rely on the photos we had taken on the earlier passing, and walk back to our hotel. Easier said than done!
We walked, what we believed to be, in the right direction but soon got lost. We asked for directions a couple of times, including the Tourist Office and each time were told, “Walk straight up this road and then turn …” Well, we soon learnt that there is no such thing as a straight road in Seville. After an hour or more, we gave up and took a taxi back to the hotel, only to learn that we were just 5 minutes away! It was not a wonderful end to a day that had started out so well.
These are photos taken while travelling on the bus.
