Travels to Spain - Seville

Seville is an amazing city with flamenco rhythms and women wearing flamenco dresses during Feria de Abril (April 29-May 4, 2003), the celebration of Semana Santa (April 13-20, 2003) that the whole city participates in when it seems that all of a sudden you are in the middle ages. This is also the city of one of the most luxurious hotels in the world – Hotel Alfonso XIII, and lots of places to see – Seville cathedral with the tallest altar in the world and the amazing Giralda, the Mudejar palace of Reales Alcazares, Museo de Bellas Artes with the best collection of art in Spain after Prado museum, the lavish Palacio de San Telmo, and Plaza de Espana with wonderful bright tiles in the Park of Maria Luisa.

Quick Tips:

There are several tourist offices throughout the city: one in the airport, one in Santa Justa train station, main office on Avenida de la Constitucion, 21B, one in Plaza del Triunfo right next door to the cathedral and the alcazar. There are a lot of tour buses offering to show you the city, and you may want to do that if you have time. However, if you are in town for a day or two, and are staying in the city center, don't waste your time on tour buses, just walk - everything is within a walking distance from each other.

Best Way To Get Around:

"Los Amarillos" is a Seville bus company that connects the city center with the airport, call within Spain 902-21-03-17.

The schedule is as follows:
From Seville on Monday-Friday: between 6:15 am and 2:45 pm every 30 minutes, no buses between 2:45 pm and 4:30 pm, every 30 minutes between 4:30 pm and 11 pm; on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays: 6:15 am, 7:15 am, 8:45 am, 9:45 am, 10:45 am, 11:45 am, 12:45 pm, 1:45 pm, 4:30 pm, 5:30 pm, 7 pm, 8 pm, 9 pm, 10 pm, 11 pm.

From the airport on Monday-Friday: between 6:45 am and 3:15 pm every 30 minutes, no buses between 3:15 pm and 5 pm, every 30 minutes between 5 pm and 11:30 pm; on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays: 6:45 am, 8:15 am, 9:15 am, 10:15 am, 11:15 am, 12:15 pm, 1:15 pm, 2:15 pm, 5 pm, 6:30 pm, 7:30 pm, 8:30 pm, 9:30 pm, 10:30 pm, 11:30 pm.

The route stops: airport (aeropuerto) - Avda Kansas City/Estacion Santa Justa/H. Occidental – Luis de Morales/H. Portacoeli/H. Lebreros – Avda S. Fco Javier/Edif. Sevilla II – Enramadila/Renfe/Viapol – Pedro de Castro/H. Melia/H. Pasarela – Universidad – Puerta Jerez/Hotel Alfonso XIII – center (centro).

e-mail: info@Hotel-AlfonsoXIII.com
check-in: 2pm, check-out: noon.

If you arrive in Madrid, there is a high–speed train called AVE that will bring you to Seville in two and a half hours but the prices for the tickets are rather high (65-100 euros per person). You can check out the schedules and prices at the www.renfe.com. We flew in from the US via London into Seville San Pablo airport located 12 km North of the city (phone: 954 449 000). Naturally the airline cancelled the flight that was arriving to Seville in the morning, so we had an afternoon flight, and by the time we arrived into Seville, grabbed our luggage and went through customs, it was after 3pm. On the internet I was able to find some information about the company "Los Amarillos" that runs buses from the airport to the city center. Buses leave the airport every 30 minutes. The ticket costs 4.50 euros and phone number inside Spain for the bus company is 902 21 03 17, and the bus terminal in the city is located right in front of Hotel Alfonso XIII. However all the websites forget to mention that there are no buses between 3 pm and 5 pm. We got into a taxi and about 15 minutes later we were at the entrance of the Hotel Alfonso XIII (it costs 25-27 euros).

This hotel is considered one of the most luxurious hotels in Spain and rightfully so. This was the intent of Alfonso XIII, Spanish king, who ruled Spain in the 20th century before the civil war and Franco’s regime (current king of Spain is Alfonso’s grandson). He wanted to build the most luxurious hotel in all of Europe, and in 1928 this became the case. The hotel was built to accommodate heads of state during the Ibero-American expo of 1929 (Plaza de España was also built for the expo). You can still feel all the glamour and regality as soon as you arrive, and obviously the prices let you know that it is truly top of the line. The hotel is located in the very center of the city, literally within walking distance to the Seville Cathedral, Reales Alcazares and Plaza de España. Even if you are not staying at the hotel, you have to walk in and explore the building – without that a visit to Seville would be incomplete. Some people come here to take their wedding pictures.

Continued in Part II

Continued from Part I

The check-in was a breathe-through. We got a large room (that could fit three twin beds). The walls in the room are covered with silk, the large bed has a baldacchino and the window drapes match the bed coverings. The room also has an antique bureau, a sofa and a chair each covered with bright green velvet, two armchairs with stripes, two bed stands with lamps and nice rugs. The small corridor leading to the room has a wardrobe of good wood with carved doors and there is a safe and a bar inside. The bathroom is covered with bright tiles with octagonal stars in pearl color on white background with marble countertops and sinks, good size bathtub, toilet and bidet. There was a complimentary bottle of olive oil in my room. The whole city of Seville is decorated with porcelain tiles, and the hotel lobby and the magnificent staircases are lined with beautiful hand-painted tiles with the pictures of angels and cupids, fruits and flowers. Each door is framed in exquisite almond color woodwork in Mudejar style. But the best part of the room was chandelier of Murano glass in green and red colors. There are all together 146 rooms, and each room is decorated in one of the three styles: Moorish, Castillian or Baroque.

The hotel has an outdoor swimming pool open in summer which we could see from our window. The pool as everything else is surrounded by beautiful tiles, as well as orange and lemon trees that at the time were full of fruits. There are also two restaurants – San Fernando that serves Spanish cuisine and also has a bar, and Kaede that serves Japanese cuisine. In the lobby there are also several boutiques. The hotel is built so that there is a small El Patio courtyard in the middle. If you come out to the balconies of the second floor, you will see that the railings are connected with each other by blue tiled columns, and if you look down, you will see a gorgeous floor covered with beautiful patterns.

Seville has rather extensive public transportation, the routes of public buses, prices and timetables can be found at www.tussam.es. There are also six night buses which run between midnight and 2am. Several buses stop in front of the hotel. You may want to make sure that you don’t get rooms on the side that is facing the park, since there is construction ongoing and it can be extremely noisy during the day.

Open: Mon-Sat 10:30am–6pm, Sun 2–5pm, last entry is one hour before closing time.

Being in Spain during Semana Santa (Holy Week) means that you will see processions with the large porcelain dolls of Mary and Jesus decorated in beautiful clothes carried from one end of the town to the other, as well as processions of various monk orders along the main street, women wearing the clothes that you can only see in Goya’s paintings of majas. It also means that all the opening hours are screwed up – some places are totally closed or close earlier, and you won’t know until you actually get there. This happened to me in Seville – the city mayor decided to close Seville cathedral couple of hours earlier for a concert – and I never got to see the inside of that cathedral.

Oh well, the cathedral from the outside is absolutely gorgeous and it is one of the largest cathedrals in the world. It is considered 3rd largest after St. Peter’s in Vatican and St. Paul’s in London, however recent 3-dimensional models make this cathedral the largest. You most certainly get that feeling when walking around it. It has very tall ceilings and gorgeous lace-like gothic spires seem to adorn the building. Part of the dome is in Renaissance style. Each of the gates has beautiful plaster rosettes and rose windows. The cathedral besides its architecture is well-known for its altar, Murillo’s and Zurbaran’s paintings and Christopher Columbus’ tomb. And attached to it is a red brick bell-tower called La Giralda [hiralda] which has become the symbol of Seville. Giralda used to be a minaret of a mosque that stood where the cathedral stands now. The tower is designed in Moorish style with horseshoe windows so typical for Andalusia. The top of the tower was added in the 16th century and is in Renaissance style that some think doesn’t go together with the rest of the tower, however I didn’t think that it was out of place. Giralda is very tall (295 ft) and if you climb it, you will be able to get a great view of the city and the inside of the gothic cathedral. The entrance to the cathedral is near La Giralda.

Phone: 954 50 23 23
Open: Apr–Sept -- Tues–Sat 9:30am–7pm, Sun and holidays 9:30am–5pm. Oct–March -- Tues–Sat 9:30am–5pm, Sun and holidays 9:30am–1:30pm; closed Mondays and April 18.
Prices: adults -– 5 euros, students -- free.

Across the square from the cathedral is the alcazar or Reales Alcázares -– royal palace of great beauty built in the Mudejar style. The first thing you will see is two towers with an entrance gate with royal lion above it. This is Puerta del Leon that leads to the ticket office. Those two symbols -– two connected towers and the royal lion -– repeat all through the palace.

From there, you enter the alcazar. The palace has a lot of rooms with walls and ceilings covered with the Mudejar plasterwork. It was built for Pedro I the Cruel (a Spanish king who lived in the 14th century) on the site that used to have a Roman acropolis, later Visigoth buildings and even a Moorish castle. The alcazar has amazing large rooms -- one better than the other. You make your way through the old archway into a large courtyard –- Patio de la Monteria (Hunting patio) with arched first floor on the right that leads to the Hall of Justice (Sala de la Justicia) that has gorgeous Mudejar walls. Across the patio it connects to the other wall of light sand brick with Mudejar ornaments that is an entrance to Salon del Almirante. The most amazing example of the Mudejar art outside of Alhambra is probably right here in Reales Alcazares’ Palacio de Don Pedro or as it is also called Palacio de Mudejar. In the middle of the Palacio is Patio de las Muñecas (dolls' patio) -- a large courtyard with a fountain in the middle, surrounded by beautiful white plaster Mudejar arches that have a repeating horseshoe shape but are however supported by Greek columns. Above the arches there are rhombus shaped patterns connected to each other with interweaving plants and shapes. The second floor was added significantly later and was made of decorations brought from Alhambra for Isabel II in the 19th century. From this patio you enter the amazing rooms with ceilings painted with octagonal stars in blue and brown or red and green, walls with Mudejar plasterwork in white and blue that at times looks like sea waves, at times like some exotic plants, at times unimaginable stars and exotic shapes –- let your imagination run!

Continued in Part II

There are also rooms with plaster motifs in bronze, blue and aquamarine colors and amazing tiles along the bottom 3-4 feet of the walls. And then you enter the Ambassador’s room (Salon de Embajados) – the jewel of the palace – the throne room - with the most beautiful ceiling in the whole palace - a huge red and gold cupola that looks like a collection of stars with tiny double towers and royal lions. Underneath the cupola along the walls you can see portraits of kings of Castille. To the side of the Salon de Embajados is another room not to be missed – Cuarto del Principe – a room with three floors of snow-white Mudejar plasterwork that takes your breath away with both its simplicity and grandeur of the imagination of its creators.

From here we move on to the Renaissance portion of the palace – Salon del Techo de Felipe II and Salon Techo del Carlos V. In these rooms you can see a collection of large tapestries and gorgeous yellow/green/blue tiles with flower patterns and urns very typical of the South of Spain.

As you exit these rooms, you find yourself in the large gardens that connect with each other. There is Estanque de Mercurio (Neptune’s Pool) that has paintings of the god of the sea inside the arched walls that act as a background to the pool and form a wall around the palace. There is a gallery connected to the pool and you can walk along it and enjoy the view of the gardens and the palace. There are several smaller patios along the route to the exit that have beautiful flowers that seem to bloom all year long, orange trees that look too heavy under its fruits and palm trees are everywhere. You exit through another gate and walk along the stonewall to once again find yourself back at Plaza del Triunfo with ancient red brick Giralda welcoming you back from your journey into the past.