Travelling to Sevilla November 5

Home	Madrid	Seville	Cordoba	Grenada
Gibraltar	Portimão	Madeira	La Palma	Tenerife

Travelling to Sevilla, November 5, 2007

I know it looks "affected" to spell Seville in Spanish, but I need to learn (or at least remember) to pronounce it Seviya, and with this spelling it's easier.

After all our difficulties yesterday we got smart and took a taxi to the train station. Our street is a pedestrian zone so we needed to walk down-hill a short block, and even before I could cross over to the taxi stand Marnie had flagged down a passing cab. So he politely stopped in the middle of the street on the cross walk, loaded our bags, and off we went.

Spain is rebuilding it's train network to be all high speed capable. Thus, the train station is more like an airport than a train station. There's a boarding lounge above the trains, you enter through security screening, tickets are checked before you go down to the platform. We travelled business class which was very comfortable but filled with people talking on their cell phones. That may be equally true in the other classes.

Travel included "departure beverage" (coffee, juice or water) and later a snack which included alcoholic beverages all free. All taken together, the travel took 2 ½ hours plus about ½ hour of boarding time.

Southern Spain is very agricultural. This portion was largely olive trees but we did see some oranges and also some fields currently fallow for winter season. Spain exports 80% of their olives and claims to be #2 in the world production (Greece is #1). They also claim that if you buy Italian Olive Oil odds are that it is actually from Spain.

The web said our Hotel was "right next to" the train station. What we learned the next day is that it's right next to the old train station. When we could see no sign of the hotel we got in a cab and asked for the 'otel Melia (Spanish "h"s are silent) and he said "which one, there are two" (en Espania of course). Luckily I'd checked for the full name and we got to the hotel.

As we walked in the lobby looking for reception we were greeted by a fellow from the travel agency. He had spotted us in the Madrid Airport getting our bags (we had very distinctive luggage tags) and was worried we'd gotten lost. He was quite relieved to know we'd planned a night in Madrid.

We (and much of the tour group) were located on the 10^th floor. The picture above is facing to the right out of our window; this picture is looking directly out the window. That's the Spanish pavilion-now mostly government offices; we'll address the "pavilion" style tomorrow.

Seville was much warmer than Madrid-77º F instead of 65º F. I had found out yesterday that I had not inserted my European power adapter into my luggage so first order of business was to find one before laptop and cameras died for lack of battery. We were told there might be one around the corner, but no, no luck. Next step was to get downtown and we decided to hoof it. Less than a block away was a bank of busses but all of them went out to the suburbs. But just beyond them was a tram (which we later learned had only been in business for 1 week!). So we bought our tickets, went downtown, after a few tries found a hardware section in a large store, and sure enough, there was my adapter.

We wandered around a bit, then got a mid-afternoon lunch (since dinner would not be till 8:30 or later). It was very nice to sit in the shade and enjoy a light meal and liquid refreshments.

We had dinner at the hotel-a very formal Spanish dinner including Spanish Sherry as appetizer (included in the overall cost). We had only 3 courses (including dessert), had a good time, but far too much to eat this late in the evening. Being a Monday night the place was almost empty, so we helped the waiter with his English and he helped my with my Spanish and all had a good time.

Home	Madrid	Seville	Cordoba	Grenada
Gibraltar	Portimão	Madeira	La Palma	Tenerife