spain day 7

ugh, numbering these by day is getting tedious and is useless.
how about this day is called "off to sevilla!"? there. that's better. more descriptive.

one last ride in the suburban, one last hug with coco and fernando, and one last ringing voice of fernando from the loudspeaker mounted on the outside of his car, one last chance for him to call ramona "manuela" and one final chance for them to load us up on generous gifts (this time, spare coats and hoodies he had laying around).


and then they were gone, and we were at the madrid train station early on a friday morning. the madrid train station has a JUNGLE in the middle of it, by the way.


we caught the high speed AVE train for a beautiful 2 hour ride through some mountainy zones,


enjoyed the meal immensely,


and suddenly we were in sevilla.

sevilla has a distinct flavor, it's own look and history, and is clearly heavily influenced by its proximity to morocco. the tile work, the flamenco culture, the old medieval streets of a city with more layers of history than an onion, and mudejar architecture everywhere you look.....i was almost immediately in love with this hot sunny tiled wonderland. naw, i was immediately in love.

we found or apartment in a tiny alleyway in the historic santa cruz jewish quarter, tried to ignore the smell of urine, and buzzed our way into an idyllic paradisical apartment zone.


our place, up on the 3rd floor, had the entire rooftop for our use. it's where we spent our home time.

 

the view from my bed....

but there was no time to linger! we had a new city to explore, so shed our travel layers, put on some sunblock, and headed out for some lunch. we wandered the courtyard around the corner from our place, and discovered that it was once of about million little groves of orange trees clustered in squares and plazas and along narrow little streets.

 

and there was a million places for lunch, and everything was packed and vibrant and pulsating. this city was alive. we found a terrace, paella, and consumable joy.

 

 after lunch, we did a cross town walk to check out a fancy new market, and on the way, we found street after tiny narrow twisting street to fall in love with, to capture a brief glimpse of the cathedral or the royal palace
 

finally we reached the market lonja del barranco, where the smaller family members got more ice cream. the market is gleaming, and full of food that i want to buy. sadly, i was stuffed to the gills with paella, so i just looked. 

 after the market, we accidentally stumbled into another zara, where i had the chance to re-consider the yellow pants i didn't buy in madrid. spoiler: i just can't with the yellow pants, so i didn't buy them. instead, the kids got more spanish fast fashion.

ah, back to the apartment. i love this courtyard.

our living room had a little window balcony out onto the courtyard.

up on the rooftop, we had churros and hot chocolate for our afternoon snack. we did not eat healthfully on this trip. nope.

i kept drinking in this view. rooftop time in a new city is just the best. it helps lay out a mental map.

after some rest, we went to see a flamenco dance show. it was so pretty.

side note: the tile in the flamenco dance place was breathtaking.

team flamenco!

 

and the walk home through the cozy glowing streets of the barrio santa cruz.

on the way home, we stopped at a bakery and happily bought up a bunch of bread items for breakfast.


and after tucking the kids into bed, we spent a little bit more time on the rooftop staring a the glowing catedral sevilla, still just kinda not believing we were there.