Roadtrip: Sevilla

The last city on our roadtrip plan was Sevillia. But before we made it there there were some more troubles waiting on us.

Because it was national holidays in Spain we were able to find a parking slot in Cadiz pretty fast. With the trade off that we would have to leave it at eight o'clock the next day. The girls parked the other car somewhere else and told us that they will stay one more hour in bed. So we left and had breakfast at some highway restaurant when we got a message from the girls. Their car got dragged off and they had to get it back from the car yard.

Meanwhile we finally arrived in Sevillia and started the impossible quest of finding a place to put our car, again... In fact: we were so ambitious to find a spot in the city that the girls arrived at the same garage (that we picked after 1,5 hours searching) the same time as we did.

The next point on the plan was to find our hostel. It was called Pension Virgen de la Luz, and we figured out why very fast: the stair house of the hostel was actually a very small patio with some improvised kind of open roof on top. That is the reason that there is a lot of light in the entire building. When you went up all the stairs and ladders you could relax on some beach chairs and also enjoy the view over the city.

We started our first expedition through the city and found some "Sevicis", the citybikes of Sevillia. These are the exact same kind like the Valenbici here in Valencia. The company behind the systems is JCDecaux, they are specialized in advertising and city furniture, but they seem to run basically everything here in Spain, including a big part of the international airports. (eg: the Valencian one).

The main sight in Sevillia is the Plaza de España. It is located in the Parque de María Luisa, which I will mention later again. The plaza is a really nice place with lots of water fountains and an artificial river going all around a little island. A lot of touristic shops are selling castanets, little guitars and fans. While we were there we also bought some castanets. Maxim even bought one of the little guitars. I tried to tune it but I pretty much failed 😅.

On the wall of the sourounding palace there is a representative artwork for each big city in spain. We of course had to do a group picture at the one for Valencia. For some reason there isn't one for Sevillia itself though...

After walking around in the city fore some more time we went to the big bullfight arena in Sevillia. But since we were all tired and had to wait for a guide we postponed our visit and most of our group went home. Excluding me and Jasper. In long middle-european software developer and hacker tradition we started our most important quest on the roadtrip: The Quest for CLUB MATE. If you don't know club-mate: it is a mate ice tee that is very popular in Germany and Austria especially in the maker and hacker scene. At UAV St. Pölten were I am studying we also have Club Mate available but here in Spain it is almost impossible to get and has to be imported from Germany. Thanks to some information we found in the deep corners of the Interwebs we found one of the two shops selling CLUB MATE in Sevillia. It was about to close but luckily we found the waitress and she sold her last 4 bottles of the liquid gold to us. With our Quest full filled and our blood full of caffeine we could return with proud to the rest of the group.

After a night of not enough sleep we went out again. This day was a Saturday and it seemed like every unmarried boy and girl in the entire city got married exactly on this day. Also since it was Saturday there where a lot of tourists in the city, trying to get into all the different cathedrals and buildings. Some of the queues where over 200 meters long. So we decided to go to the bullfight arena again and try to get in. We were lucky because the moment we arrived there were not too many people. Because there is no other way to get in we got a tour for 5€ (students price). We were given an audio guide and there was a lady basically just opening doors and telling us which buttons to press on the guides.

The Plaza de toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla is one of Spains biggest bull fight arenas. Almost every big city here has one. The Real Maestranza de Caballería is a noble guild for cavalry training and built the bull stadium in 1749. On our tour we also visited the collection of paintings, metal works and traditional clothing of famous "torreros".

After listening to all the stories from the audio guide we saw the horse barns and the chapel in which the "matador" can prey his final prayer before entering the ring. We entered through the main door and also saw the bullring from the torreros point of view.

It is very interesting how the audio guide enforces the words bravery, tradition and honor, but not even mentions the contraversion about bullfights. After all: it is still the number two "sporting" event after football, fueling a large industry behind it. I spend the evening of searching for bull fight accidents and found some pretty scaring ones... Then I stumbled upon an interesting article about Catalonia and their attempt to make bullfights illegal. Afterwards the government in Madrid overruled the vote.

The next place we visited was the Jardin de María Luisa, the 36 Hektar big park next to the Plaza de España. It is a very beautiful park with lots of water fountains as well, following the theme of Sevillia and a lot more cities here in Andalusia.

Water fountains and works were an Arabic sign of great wealth and emerged during the high of the Arabic culture in Spain. After the Christians came to chase the Arabs away the left a lot of their culture, buildings and tradition behind, which we clearly experienced throughout the entire Andalusia Roadtrip.

In the evening we went to a tapa bar, had some really nice tapas and then visited a little flamenco show. Unfortunately there was no lady in the typical red dress. Therefore we saw a very talented male dancer and then a little boy, who showed his impressive skills to the clapping and guitar sounds from the hombres behind him.

The next day we got up early. I took the chance to take off my drone from the roof of the hostel and get some final footage from the sunrise in the morning. Then we left and had a very relaxed trip home to Valencia.

This was the last city but probably not the last part of my roadtrip coverage. I am still working on a best off selection and a final after movie that will include all the drone videos and so on. Also we are already planning the next roadtrip, so stay tuned =D.