Tapas and Churros

After an early night on our first night in Seville, we were up early and ready to explore the rest of the city. It was another lovely sunny day, and warmer than it had been the day before, so for the first time in months, I went outside without my coat on!

We started our morning with a walk along the riverside, we were heading towards the Plaza del Toro's, which is a bullfighting ring where they still do live Bullfighting. Luckily the season hadn't started yet, so we didn't witness any horrific animal slaughtering, but we did manage to have a wander round and have a quick look at the museum, which shows the history of Bullfighting in Seville.

The main reason we headed along the river was because I'd heard of a yummy place that sells Churros on the side of the road. We didn't manage to find the one we were looking for, but we did come across another one that did really yummy Chocolate con Churros. They had a couple of different kinds, so we enjoyed a breakfast of Churros and Hot Chocolate overlooking the Puente del Isabel, the bridge that takes you over to the traditional neighbourhood of Triana, across the river.

Puente de Isabel

Excited to be having my favourite food for breakfast!

A healthy start to the day

After breakfast, we headed across the bridge to explore the Triana neighbourhood. This is across the river from the city of Seville, and is a traditional neighbourhood that was originally populated with bullfighters, sailors and Flamenco dancers. If you happen to be there at night time, the locals will often start spontaneously Flamenco dancing, but we didn't manage to see any of that when we were there.

Our next stop was Plaza de la Encarnación and the Metropol Parasol, a huge wooden building that gives you an amazing view over all of Seville. It's supposedly the largest wooden structure in the world and has winding walkways on the top level so you get a 360 view of Seville. There is also a huge food market on the 1st floor, but this was closed when we visited, which was disappointing because it was supposed to be open!

The Metropol Parasol

A still moustached Bradley

We were getting pretty hungry again by this time, so we headed towards the Alameda de Hercules, a huge tree lined square famous for its cafes, bars and restaurants. It's extremely popular with locals and tourists, and there were heaps of people out enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.

We stopped for lunch at a Tapas place that looked busy, right in the centre of the square. We didn't realise until we sat down that the entire menu was in Spanish and we couldn't understand anything.

Luckily our DK guide book had a guide to Tapas in the front, so we were able to decipher what everything was, and managed to speak to the waiter in a combination of basic Spanish and pointing!

The Tapas were so delicious, the food in Spain in probably some of the best we've ever had. We're still arguing over whether the food is better in Italy or Spain!

We had some really tender beef cheeks, potatoes, calamari and spinach and feta croquettes. We also had a jug of extremely strong Sangria. Definitely glad we stopped there for lunch.

After lunch we headed back towards the hotel so have a rest and enjoy the last of the late afternoon sunshine on the roof terrace of our hotel. It was nice to finally be able to relax with a book in the sunshine. I can't remember the last time we did that!

The culture in Seville is to have dinner very late, most places don't open for dinner until about 9.00 p.m., which is why we had a late lunch. We usually have dinner much earlier, so we didn't want to be starving when nothing was open!

We wandered through the streets of the Santa Cruz district and past the Cathedral which looked amazing all lit up, very different from during the day.

We stopped for dinner at a Tapas place which was highly recommended on Trip Advisor, the Catalina Bar de Tapas. Once again we had some amazing Tapas, we had pork, spinach and feta croquettes (again), plus beef and potatoes. I think this was Bradley's favourite meal from anywhere we've been. He's still talking about the spinach and feta croquettes!