Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Sevilla es maravilla!

Sevilla es maravilla as Spaniards says. Probably it is when day is sunny and hot - not as rainy as it was about noon on 7th of April when we arrived to the city.
Don Paco hotel was not so easy to find, but after circulating the city for about 15 minutes I've found it! I've chosen this hotel, because they offered a parking space. Of course it was true. They've underground garage for... 5, maybe 6 cars! And hotel is really big! About 30-40 rooms on each of 3 or 4 floors. Can't imagine where people park their cars considering crowded and narrow streets around the hotel.
Another advantage of the hotel is its location in walking distance from the city center. Actually it's about 30 minutes to the Cathedral (and Giralda), but you've to get through the most beautiful old part of the city or a more modern commercial district passing stores like El Cortes Ingles and others.

First we headed to Parque de María Luisa located next to Plaza de Espana, Hotel Alfonso XIII and Universidad. I insisted on stopping by Hotel Alfonso XIII and it was a good idea. Hotel is really nice and encouraging to stay. Next time I'll think it over, because it's even not so expensive off season (considering its 5 stars rating). Then we get through Universidad and headed to the park. Again had no luck - park was closed - I still don't know why?!?! In this circumstances we had to spend time on visiting Plaza de Espana that is really great and has a lot of interesting details to look closer.

Next destination was the area close to river Guadalquivir. It was not as interesting as it seemed to be, so we quickly went for some late lunch in Starbucks Coffee. After short break we had a closer look at Cathedral, Real Alcazar (closed on Mondays!) and Giralda. Unfortunately it was too late to enter the Cathedral and see it from inside.

The only thing we had time for was a flamenco show. This time we prepared better and called the Casa Carmen Arte Flamenco to make some reservation. It was a good choice. Casa Carmen is located in the small venue that usually has a role of nightclub, but early in the evening it transforms to flamenco show that lasts about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Besides the flamenco itself, they had a good choice of tapas for people coming an hour before the show (20:00). And what's even better, they allowed to take some pictures at the end. If you want to see a good, traditional flamenco in Sevilla, I can definitely recommend Casa Carmen Arte Flamenco. It's really worth 16 euro you've to pay for ticket (picture on the right).
After the day full of attractions we came back to the hotel and early morning left it for Malaga Airport. This was a really nice weekend in Spain and I definitely would like to get back there soon for some longer stay!

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