After a picturesque 4.5 hour train ride through the Spanish countryside from Valencia to Seville, we made the quick walk to our home for the night: OneFam Catedral Hostel. It’s the same hostel chain we stayed at in Barcelona! We enjoyed it because it’s a social hostel, that’s kept super clean, and it offers great activities and recommendations, so we were happy to see it had a location in Seville.
Our first impressions while walking through the narrow cobblestone streets to our hostel were SÌ! THIS is the Spain we imagined! It was dripping with charm and authenticity, exactly the quintessential Spain we had envisioned. Wini’s good friend Zigs studied abroad in Seville during university and she raved about it, but we didn’t fully buy the hype until we arrived.
Unfortunately, I woke up with a sore throat and general cold symptoms, including exhaustion, so when we checked into our 10-bed dorm, I curled up for a midday nap while Wini headed out to get a taste of our cute surroundings.
She came back buzzing with excitement over the adorable little city centre! Seville is known as the birthplace for flamenco dancing and there are many small flamenco studios nearby, so we decided for the evening we would get our first Spanish tapas and go to a show.
We went to the nearest tapas place to our hostel, which ended up being only okay. A bit of a letdown for our first tapas experience in Spain. The food was cold, and the portions weren’t very big, but at least the drinks were good!
That evening we went out for the flamenco show, and it was… something! We went to Casa de la Guitarra, which is a very intimate venue. Apparently, flamenco music is comprised of three parts: guitar “toque”, clapping/singing “palmas”/cante”, and dance “baile”.
The show started off with a solo guitarist, who was amazing.
But things took an unexpected turn when he brought out his singer/clapper to accompany him. He seemed to be completely off-beat with exaggerated facial expressions while “singing” (wailing and groaning to our ears). It did not sound good to us at all, and we kept looking around at the other people in the room to see if they thought it was as strange as we did. Everyone was a foreigner that also didn’t know what to expect though, so we all just sat there with a polite smile feeling like we were being Punk’d.
Then the dancer came out and she was lively and entertaining. Her shoes were like tap-shoes, so they made a lot of noise, which actually seemed to balance out the weird off-beat clapping by the other guy a little, though we think it would have been great if it was just the guitarist and the dancer. It felt like a mix of talent and hilarity, lasting an hour… and it felt like it lol. It was a cool cultural experience, but I think we’re okay only having one.
There was an event on the roof of our hostel when we returned, and they were giving out free sangria! We joined the group and got chatting with a really sweet Canadian girl named August who gave us some good recommendations for things to do and places to eat in Seville, as she had already been there for a few days. It was a nice evening chatting and getting to know other travellers as the sun went down.
The next morning, we packed up and dropped our bags at reception; just a quick stay at the hostel. Our last two experiences Couchsurfing were wonderful, so we found a host, Sergio, in Seville! However, he lives a little out of the city so we decided to spend the day exploring Seville before heading to his apartment in the evening.
We signed up for a walking tour of Seville through our hostel, however, the tour turned out to be less interesting than we had hoped. Our tour guide seemed to be spouting an overwhelming number of facts, which made it quite boring. We decided to ditch the tour and walked around on our own.
We started in Plaza de España which was a beautiful grand building and square originally built for the 1929 Expo. Its semi-circular shape is meant to symbolize a hug to other visiting nations.
Plaza de España has 48 ceramic tiled alcoves and benches that depict the 48 provinces that existed in Spain during that period.
We walked around Giralda Tower and Seville Cathedral, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, and the third largest church in the world after St. Peter’s in the Vatican and St. Paul’s in London! It’s an impressive sight to behold, and was hard to capture photos of because of its enormous scale.
Our friend from the night before, August, had recommended a tapas place called Universal People Bar, so we decided to try it out, and oh my god, the food was absolutely fantastic! We ordered beef cheeks, pork with whisky sauce, and roasted ham hock with mashed potatoes. Everything was mouthwatering, with big portions, and shockingly cheap. It was a huge redemption from our mediocre tapas from the night before. We’re still dreaming about it now.
We went out to explore further, and found a verrrry authentic Spanish gelato company called Benito & Jericho’s (anglicized as Ben & Jerry’s if the pronunciation is too difficult) that offered cookie dough ice cream with the option to add EXTRA cookie dough chunks on top. And who are we to say no to a centuries old Spanish tradition?!
Energized by our delicious dessert, we continued our journey, making our way to Las Setas (“The Mushrooms”) at La Encarnación square in the old quarter. August told us that she paid the fee to go up to the top the day before but the views weren’t that impressive, so we decided to just appreciate it from below.
Our wanderings led us to Alameda de Hercules, where we took a break in the cute park.
We strolled the streets before returning to the hostel to get our bags. However, the hostel was offering a free tour of the Plaza de Toros bullfighting arena, so we decided to postpone picking up our luggage and join the group.
A ticket to enter the bullring normally costs 10 euros, however, entry is free on Wednesday afternoons at 5 pm, so after waiting in line we were able to enter and explore the halls and memorabilia, and then access the ring itself.
This historic bullring dates back to the 18th century and is a testament to the enduring legacy of bullfighting in Spain. Bullfighting is still held at Plaza de Toros, despite it being a controversial practice.
It was an enjoyable visit, but we felt it wouldn’t have been worth the usual admission fee for us.
After our bullring experience, we finally headed to our Couchsurfing host Sergio’s house. He was incredibly kind and picked us up from the MRT station so we didn’t have to walk the remaining way with our big bags. His apartment was so cute, and he was extremely friendly and easy to talk to. We spent the evening chatting and enjoying a lovely dinner together.
The following day, we headed into the city to visit the Royal Alcazar, a palace complex located next to the Seville Cathedral. It is one of the oldest palaces still in use by the royal family in Europe. We didn’t even know Spain still had a royal family (and why is the king lowkey a snack?).
Arriving at the Alcazar, we faced a massive line, and we also realized the tickets we bought online yesterday were from a non-official website (that looked more legit than the real website), and we had inadvertently doubled the entrance price. Our frustrations heightened as we realized that the “skip-the-line” tickets we thought we bought were false advertising, and we had to join the obscenely long queue.
Inside, we learned that the audio tour we had purchased didn’t work with our Bluetooth headphones. We were feeling seriously grumpy! I may have had a standoff with a duck to take out my annoyance. :/
However, we entered the grounds and appreciated the architecture.
Then we went out to the spacious gardens and took a seat on one of the benches. Our frustrations began to melt away in the beautiful, serene atmosphere, with sightings of majestic looking peacocks. We enjoyed walking around and exploring the massive grounds.
After our explorations, hunger led us back to Universal People’s Bar, where we ordered even more of their incredible dishes.
I started to feel unwell, so we went back to Sergio’s where I spend the rest of the night resting and Wini chatted with our new friend Sergio.
On our departure day, we took our time and got ready to leave for the bus station. We made our way to the bus stop, feeling the 37°C (99° F) temperature. The bus arrived, albeit a bit late, and we hopped on board, eagerly anticipating the next leg of our journey: Lisbon, Portugal!