Travel Day - Cordoba to Sevilla

A quick walk to the train station and we were on our way to Sevilla,120 km SW and a mere 45 minutes on the high speed train. I haven’t been able to take any photos of the countryside because they are a blur at 300 km/h. So far the land has been flat and winter brown. Now that we are heading south it is greener, more hills, and dotted with olive and orange groves.

On arrival in Sevilla we took a public bus to the central area 20 minutes from the train station. Here we had a short 10 minute walk to our Airbnb one bedroom apartment. The owner, Esperanza, spoke some English and was very helpful with tips on her apartment and city. The apartment was spotless, had everything we needed, and was charmingly Spanish. It was conveniently located to all the shopping and sites. There was a large department store, El Corte Ingles, that had a great supermarket where I was able to stock up on some staples as we would be spending 5 days in Sevilla. It reminded me of the old Eatons downtown store where my Mom would do her grocery shopping.

Sevilla has a population similar to Winnipeg yet everything was so centralized. There is only one skyscraper that wasn’t a hit with the people when it was built. Since there are no shopping malls, the downtown (Centro) is a maze of shops, restaurants and bars that extends for many kilometres. Armed with a better map app I was able to mostly figure out where we were going but the streets and lanes have no symmetry. In Spain there is a custom called Paseo where the locals go out and walk between 7 and 9 before their late dinner. The narrow streets, flanked with shops on either side, were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people. Many were shopping as in January and February there is a government law that all stores must reduce their prices in order to make room for the new inventory. Spain is my kind of place, although I was only window shopping and people watching. Paseo is supposed to be very interesting in the warmer months as the people dress up in their finest and latest fashion wear.Read more