Weekend Trip to Seville | Education Abroad GeoBlog

Hey everyone,

So I just got back from my weeklong adventure on the Camino de Santiago Saturday morning, but had to spend the weekend resting and catching up on homework. Now it’s time to catch up on blogging.

A couple weeks ago, my study abroad program made its first big organized trip – spending a weekend in Seville. It’s a pretty historic city in south-central Spain that has seen a lot of conflict between the Moors and Christians, and has a very unique culture because of that. All 30 of us from my program went, along with about 5 of our professors and advisors. It was a lovely 8 or so autobus ride from Alicante to Seville, and we had to stop every 2-3 hours (by law?) for the bus driver to rest (and also for us to go to the bathroom). Once we finally got there we checked into the hotel and had a few hours to explore the city. A few guys and I went to a nearby cafe to grab some beers/coffee before heading off to explore. After walking for 30 minutes or so we had no idea where we were, and spent the next couple hours figuring out how to get back to the hotel (yes we were too stubborn to ask for help until the end, and even then we misread the map and were still lost).

With that fun out of the way, we later met up with the group to see a flamenco show and get dinner. While walking there we went past a really cool plaza “Plaza Mayor” // “Old Plaza” which had very much modern architecture (the name comes from the fact that in the center are ruins of the old city), and we also got our first glimpse of the impressive cathedral we would be touring the next day.

As for the flamenco show, it was incredible. Seville is where Flamenco originated (I think) and it has its own style of the dance. This show consisted of a man playing guitar (with all five fingers and no pick…probably the best I’ve ever seen), another man clapping/stomping and singing Flamenco-style (very passionate, loud, with great range and tone changes – really hard to understand the words but interesting nonetheless), and a man and woman dancing (kind of like an intense cross between tap-dancing and the salsa, lots of spinning, snapping, clapping, stomping, gesturing, etc). It was really cool to see.

After the flamenco show we went out and got a traditional light Spanish dinner – some sangria and tapas (I got a toasted sandwich of fresh cheese and a salmon lock, and some almost-raw beef slices with olive oil and salt – delicious!).

The next morning we got our tour of the cathedral. It was originally built by the Moors as a mosque, but after the Reconquista when the Christians took back Spain, it was converted/expanded into a Catholic cathedral (the third largest in the world). It also has a very famous tower called la Giralda which we were able to climb up and get some seriously great views of the city. There’s a really cool interior plaza with trees and fountains that was really beautiful. Inside the cathedral is a whole bunch of cool stuff (and amazing architecture obviously), the best of which is Christopher Columbus’ tomb.

^Christopher Columbus

After the cathedral we got lunch (paella, fried fish, pie, and wine – win!) and then headed to the royal palace. Another example of Muslim/Christian combination architecture, it was started in the 8th century and continued over the years. It’s the current residence of the Spanish royal family (although you can’t tour that part) and is the oldest palace still in use. There’s a bunch of beautiful architecture and a big royal garden – it was really cool to see.

After the palace we took the rest of the day off for dinner and general relaxation. The next day we were leaving in the early afternoon so we only had one quick tour in the morning – la Plaza de Espa�a. It was built in the 1920’s for some sort of world fair, and was really beautiful.

After that we had another lovely 8 hour bus ride back to Alicante. All in all it was a good weekend, although I got lost twice and the city was pretty touristy so I wouldn’t want to live there.

Well that’s all for now. I’ll catch you up soon on classes, el Camino de Santiago, and life in general…

Location: Seville, Spain

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