La Familia en Sevilla

Brenda and I arrived in Seville on Sunday, November 8 and were delighted to find many shops and most restaurants open and bustling with patrons. Of course, this was in stark contrast to all the other cities and towns we've visited so far, both in Portugal and Spain, where on Sundays we were fortunate to find anywhere to buy food or eat.

We spent our first day in Seville just wandering about, getting the lay of the land and scouting out restaurants and sights we'd like to visit. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Sevilla (as the Spanish call it ) is an incredibly beautiful city with a wealth of history to explore. Most of the main attractions in Seville can be visited free of charge at least one day per week, the exception being the Reales Alcázares de Sevilla palace which is only free to Sevillians or members of the EU. I believe they should extend that to include the Commonwealth Nations as well.

We were still in laid back mode from our time in Malaga and, with no real schedule or agenda, we moved about the city at our own very slow pace. We got into see the museum in the Golden Tower (no one knows how it was named, it's not even yellow) and scouted out restaurants while we awaited our visitors. Brenda's brother, Gordon, his wife, Betty, their daughter, Zenna and Brenda's sister, Anna arrived in Seville late on the evening of November 11 after more than 24 hours of travel from Vancouver. They planned to spend a few days with us before we headed off to Brazil. It was great to see them and have a little family time in a small group. Our visits with them in Vancouver are not usually for such extended periods of time and there always seems to be something else going on. This was much more relaxed. We took a walking tour of the main monuments that included the cathedral, the Alcazar palace, Plaza d'Espana and the old tobacco factory. We dined out as a group, shopped for shoes (painful for me) and souvenirs (Anna, did you ever buy that Flamenco apron?) and basically acted like tourists for a couple of days. We had tapas and drinks at the bodega across from our apartment on Friday night and ended our visit on Saturday the 14th with churros y chocolate for breakfast and a paella feast lunch at La Paella de Sevilla restaurant. Gord and Betty were extremely kind in agreeing to schlep my bike back to Vancouver with them so that I didn't have to carry it with me across the Atlantic and through Brazil. I'm so grateful. Brenda's bike? We decided that the damages it suffered in the crash were bad enough that it wasn't worth dragging around the world with us so she sold it to a shop that specializes in Dahons. We'll buy her a new one when we get home.

I'm fortunate to have married into such a wonderful family and hope we'll be able to repeat the experience in the years to come.Read more