Andalusia Day 8 - Sevilla

For our last day in Andalusia we headed to Sevilla.   We were going to meet up with our long time Spanish teacher José Maria Marquez, who happens to be from Sevilla.  It was about a 2 hour drive from our place, but unfortunately we got lost because the GPS didn't recognize some of the new highways.  We got stuck in traffic entering the city, but we eventually met up with José in his old neighbourhood.

He took us out for lunch and then we hopped on the metro (Sevilla only has 1 line) and went downtown.  I was glad to have José as our guide, because we didn't have a lot of time and if we were on our own we would probably have wasted a lot of time not knowing where to go next.   It was also nice to have running commentary everywhere we went and we could ask questions and practice our Spanish too.

He showed us where he went to university and pointed out that the Universidad de Sevilla was formally the Real Fábrica de Tabacos.  This is where Carmen from the opera Carmen famously worked.   Next we walked to the Catedral de Sevilla and José explained that at one point, it was the biggest cathedral in the world and now it is still the biggest gothic cathedral in the world.  There was a long line up to enter, so we just looked around the outside of the cathedral.  Next we walked through the old Jewish quarters that are beside the Reales Alcazares or royal palaces.  We ended up at city hall then walked down the Rio Guadalquivir, we passed the Torre del Oro and back to the metro.

Of course we missed a lot of stuff in Sevilla, but we learned a lot about the city in just a couple of hours.   And fortunately we didn't get lost driving back to Casabermeja.

Universidad de Sevilla

This tower on the Catedral de Sevilla is 104m tall

West facade, door of Saint Miguel

North facade, Patio de los Naranjos

West facade, Door of Assumption

Sevilla Town Hall

Sitting on the border of the Rio Guadalquivir