Seville Snapshots: Laid Back at Puerta Jerez

February 18, 2013 by · 8 Comments

As an adopted Sevillana, I have my haunts: from La Grande’s red awning to the little corner of Las Golondrinas, tucked beneath the squares, within earshot of Pepe who shouts, Niiiiiiñaaaa, tu champiiii!  And despite tracing and retracing my steps all over Sevilla, they’re places I can’t tire of. Puerta Jerez is another, an old city plaza that’s usually my gateway into the city center. Apart from its beauty, it’s lively and romantic.

Alexis of Never Leave Here writes:

Though I was only in Sevilla for a couple of days, I already felt like I got a sense for the lifestyle there. I live in Madrid now and life can be hectic sometimes with people rushing around ready to get down to business. I was impressed by Sevilla’s vibe: laid back and joyful.

I spent over an hour here behind the Fuente de la Puerta de Jerez as the sun went down, just watching families take an ice cream break (even in December!) and street musicians set up, play and leave as the sun started to set. In the last few months of living in Spain, I’ve been to quite a few cities and Sevilla is the only one I really want to get back to. I loved the pace of life there – not to mention the food and music were among the best I’ve experienced yet in the country. I can’t wait to return!

Have photos of Seville or Spain to share? I gladly accept them! Send me an email to sunshineandsiestas @ gmail.com, or upload to my Facebook page.

Alexis lives in Madrid where she teaches English to pay the bills and writes about travel, food, photography and her love for all things vintage on her blog, Never Leave Here. 

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Filed Under: A Few of My Favorite Things, Architecture, coming home, El Centro, Featured, guest post, music, Places with Encanto, Plazas and Squares, Sevilla Center, Seville, Seville Shots, Things to do in Sevilla · Tagged: , ,

Seville Snapshots: Twilight at the Setas of Plaza de la Encarnacion

February 15, 2013 by · 5 Comments
Planning a trip to Seville? Look no further than Sandra of Seville Traveller. Like me, a visit to Seville brought her back to live in the capital of Andalusia, and she uses her free time to write great tips about how to enjoy the city. You can sign up for her free newsletter, which comes with a PDF of tips, or check out her guest posts on Sunshine and Siestas!
 
 
People say that you tend to miss what you have next to you, while you are willing to explore further corners. And it’s true: I hadn’t had a chance to go up the observation deck at the Setas before last December. That day I woke up with one thing in mind: to capture the beautiful dusk light with my camera. The day was going to be clear, though I was hoping for a few clouds since the make the visual experience much more rewarding but I had to do with what I had: a perfect blue sky.
 
 
The idea was to explore the whole structure by walking around at a slow pace, looking for the best spots to place my tripod and be ahead of other visitors. Lucky for me, the premises were almost empty and most people spent only a few minutes at the main lookout. I had the Steas to myself, so the only thing left to do was wait. My iPod did the rest. I looked around…
 
 
In the background, the view over the Guadalquivir River and both bridges, the Alamillo and the Barqueta, was beautiful. On the right hand side, the sun was slowly going down, from yellow to orange and finally red, reflecting its light on the soon-to-be-completed skyscraper, the Pelli Tower. Right in front of me I had Seville’s main highlights, El Salvador Church, the Cathedral and the Giralda. Finally, on the left hand side of the city was a sea of scattered domes.

The picture illustrating this post shows the main view at a moment photographers call the blue hour. See how amazing the sky looks? Contrary to most European cities, Seville enjoys a light that is hard to find anywhere else. Don’t you want to see it with your own eyes?

 
Setas de Sevilla (former Metropol Parasol)
The Setas the Sevilla observation deck can be visited from Sunday to Thursday from 10.30am until midnight and on Friday and Saturday from 10.30am to 1am. It only costs 1.35 euros and it’s free for children up to 12 years old. The best part is that you can still as long as you want – there aren’t any time limitations.
 
The website is only in Spanish but you can still visit it to have a look and watch some very cool videos.
 
Want to add the Setas to your Seville itinerary? You have to check out the Seville in Two Days e-book, chock full of ideas, routes and logistics when visiting the Andalusian capital.

Sandra lives in Seville and spends all her free time exploring the world (30+ countries so far!). She is the editor of Seville Traveller, an online resource about the city. She has also published a Pocket Guide that will help you plan the trip of a lifetime. You can follow her on Twitter or keep posted through Facebook.

Filed Under: El Centro, Featured, guest post, Museums, nightlife, photo post, Places with Encanto, Sevilla Center, Seville, Seville Shots, Things to do in Sevilla · Tagged: , ,

Romantic Ideas for Valentine’s Day in Seville

January 30, 2013 by · 14 Comments

If my children ever ask me how their father and I met, I won’t have much to tell (drunken exchange in a bar).

The real romance is how we fell in love and where we did it.

Take a dashing Spanish hombre with a job as a fighter pilot and impeccable English, and set the story against Spain’s most romantic city, Seville, and it’s easy to see why I felt trapped in a fairytale with acento andalú and no talking animals. Truth be told, we fell in love over beers at a typical Spanish tavern, sharing a plate of stewed bull’s tail, but our first year of dating felt romantic given the beauty of Seville and it’s most famous lover, Don Juan Tenorio.

As a city marked by bandoleros, kings, Moors and Christians, Seville is architectural eye candy for even the most hardened heart. Quaint plazas are hidden away under the shade of orange trees, sidled up to soaring churches from the 16th century. There’s a steady hum of chatter spilling out of bars as sevillanos have their afternoon glass of fino, a dry sherry that matches well with brine-soaked olives. Sunlight glints off of fountains during the day. whereas the twilight affords a dressing up of monuments, flooded with light.

But southern Spain’s capital is all feeling and less seeing: haunting flamenco chords echo through empty cobblestone streets, the smell of orange blossoms and incense rife in early Spring, the viscous liquid gold of the olive oil that graces every plate. Seville captivates the senses and makes falling in love easy – with the city, with its people, with the perfect caña and the chico who stole your heart.

My top picks for a romantic day in Seville:

Take a dip in the Baños Arabes: The Moorish reign of Seville have left a stamp on the cozy Santa Cruz quarter, which nuzzles the Alcázar palace. After having breakfast (try La Cachererría on Calle Regina for toast kissed with olive oil and crushed tomato), relax in the low lights and pools of the Arabic Baths. Located on an alleyway so slim you can touch both sides, the restored building offers a thermal bath circuit and massages for upwards of 58€. (Calle del Aire, 15).

Horse Carriage Ride through María Luisa Park: Seville’s city center is clogged with pedestrians, tourists and an eye sore of a light rail, but the green lung is located just past the university. The park, crowned by the half-moon Plaza de España,  was built to commemorate the 1929 Iberoamerican Expositin held partly on its grounds. The leafy refuge, with tiled fountains and plenty of grass for a picnic, is best seen from a carriage, which are available for rent in the park.

source: flickr

Stop by the monument dedicated to Gustavo Adolfo Béquer, a Sevillian poet of the romantic period. His most famous work, Rimas, is the inspiration for a marble statue situated at the north end of the park. It depicts Cupid throwing arrows at three women.

When your stomach rumbles, have dinner on the Guadalquivir: Known for its tapeo, or tapas hopping, Seville also boasts world-class restaurants. Among the most romantic are those that line the Guadalquivir river on the Triana side of town, particularly on Calle Betis. From here, the bullring, Masetranza theatre and Torre del Oro are the protagonists of the riverfront, with the Giralda Tower and the spires of the cathedral in the forground. Go all out at Abades Triana (Calle Betis, 69), or try Kiosco de las Flores (Calle Betis, s/n) or El Faro de Triana (at the end of the Triana bridge) for budget options with unparalleled views.

Following dinner, have a cocktail at one of the terraces in the city center. Hotel EME’s bar has a hip vibe, while ROOF’s views include the Metropol, a mushroom-like wooden structure that has taken over Plaza de la Encarnación. If that’s not your style, you can tuck into a peña flamenco and cozy up to cantaores while drinking Agua de Sevilla.

What is Spain’s most romantic city, in your opinion? How would you spend a romantic day in a city?

This is my entry to the February 2013 Carnival of Europe hosted by Aleah Taboclaon of Solitary Wanderer with the theme “Most Romantic Places in Europe”

 

Filed Under: A Few of My Favorite Things, Andalusia Tourism, Bilingual Love, Featured, love, Sevilla Center, Seville, Things to do in Sevilla, tourism · Tagged: ,

Visiting Estepa: More Than Just Mantecados

January 16, 2013 by · 6 Comments

I sometimes confused Estepona, a beach destination on the Costa del Sol, with Estepa, a town nuzzled up to a hill at the far reaches of the Seville province. During the multiple car trips crisscrossing Spain’s southernmost autonomous region, I’d often watch the small village with its church spires punctuating the horizon pass by quickly. Being known for its holiday goodies, particularly mantecados, it’s always been a place in the back of my mind to visit.

Javi met us at the aptly name Hotel Don Polverón – a homage to one of the city’s baked moneymakers – and we steered our car along the roads of the industrial park near the highway, its streets named for the basic ingredients of the mantecados: Almendra, Azúcar, Canela. It’s common in Spanish households to have an anís bottle set out next to mantecados when the Reyes Magos come, so we feasted like the Three Kings for the better part of the morning.

The visit first brought us to La Estepeña, one of the most universally known brands.

La Estepeña features a visit to the factory, where a workforce made up almost entirely of women use traditional methods of preparing and wrapping the goodies, though the actually baking is no longer done in an oven. We visited the belén made entirely of chocolate and the small museum before marveling at the gorgeous Christmas tree in the foyer of the museum.

Most of the famous mantecado brands have been making the pig’s lard Christmas treats for generations, so Javi pointed us in the direction of La Despensa del Palacio, where the cakes are still baked in a wood-burning oven after being hand-kneaded. The mantecados are crumbly and leave your mouth dry, so we were then whisked away to the small anisette factory – the Spanish abuelo’s favorite – for a sampling of anís seco in Anís Bravío.

Cravings satisfied, we climbed Cerro San Cristóbal, the city’s highest hill. The rainy morning haze seems to have stayed in la capital – the day was bright and welcoming. Smack dab in the autonomía of Andalusia, one can see the provinces of Seville, Málaga and Córdoba, much like the Hancock building in Chicago.

Estepeños not interested in mantecados trek up the hill to the convent, where a turnstile still offers cloistered nuns peddling homemade treats, and the lavish baroque chapel not open to the public. Violeta was waiting for us here, key to the capilla in hand.

“They know me here, ” she smiled. “One of the perks of the job.” She and Javi accompanied us around the rest of the sites on the Cerro, including a small museum dedicated to the city’s culinary treasure that was once the kitchen the nuns used to make the sweets.

The adjacent Santa María church was originally intended for the Orden de Santiago, the church has been reconstructed and now contains a small religious art museum, complete with relics of petrified fingers and locks of hair.

A rickety octagonal tower sits just west of Santa María. This was the defensive tower used for the Orden de Santiago, and the views facing the Balcón de Andalucía, the pueblo’s mirador that looks down on the whitewashed houses that seem to crawl down the hill, were stunning after a few days of rain and a lucky break in the weather pattern.

Back down the hill, we found parking just in front of As de Tapas on Estepa’s main street. This is what I love most about the pueblos in Seville: good, hearty food, the steady hum of chattering in castellano and a cold beer.

Sending thanks to Javi and Violeta of Heart of Andalusia for their generous offer to show Caitlin and me around the Ciudad del Mantecado and the other lovely sites of Estepa. As always, all opinions expressed are my own.

Filed Under: Andalucia, Andalusia Tourism, Churches, Estepa, Featured, gastronomy, Museums, photo post, Places with Encanto, Rural Tourism, Seville, Seville Province, Tapas Thursday, Things to do in Sevilla, tourism ·

Trendy Christmas Party: Seville’s Young Fashion Designer Scene

December 20, 2012 by · 4 Comments

When Seville’s Fine Arts College expanded its fashion design and merchandising department, young designers came to its catwalk and state-of-the-art new building to pursue fashion degrees that extend far beyond the flamenco dresses that have become synonymous with the city’s moda.

An explosion of boutiques, gastrobars and DIY fashion trends have made the Alfalfa neighborhood Seville’s In Place to create and sell, dubbed by the New York Times as Seville’s Sohos. Young entrepreneurs are peddling wares – from vintage to crochet – out of pop up shops around Calle Perez Galdos and Calle Regina. Sevilla tiene una moda especial.

When Kate of Kate Mariela invited me to attend the first annual Trendy Christmas at Grand Luxe Hostal, hosted in part with Sevilla Trendy, I jumped at the chance to browse for Christmas gifts and meet some of the young designers. Grand Luxe, just steps off Seville’s most famous sites, played host to the event, which ran on the 13th and 14th of December. As Kate requested, Camarón came along to document all of the cool stuff for sale and their fun, young designers.

In each of the hostel’s spacious rooms, designers set up everything from brooches to boots, headbands to hangars. No less than 15 young diseñadores were invited by Kate Mariela and Sevilla Trendy to show, and Kate herself ran two workshops on each day, allowing guests to create fun DIY gifts for Christmas. I got there early, able to introduce myself to some of the designers. I debated what to wear, got a manicure (a bad one, regardless) and still showed up looking a fright, but when it came down to it, the showers were gracious and more than willing to help me style everything from what I’m wearing to a civil wedding next weekend to new accessories for my flamenco dress.

Here’s a peek at what Seville’s young, fashion-forward minds have come up with for the season (not all designers are pictured because I wasn’t able to take photos in all of the rooms):

helena moral (winner of the 2012 award for up-and-coming fashion designer). @hemoral. moralhelena@gmail.com.

Giorgia Stramare. stramarefulvia@liberto.it

Motoreta. Children’s line (adorbs!) out this March. moreta@moreta.es

Tocados Victoria Eugenia. tocadosvictoriaeugenia@gmail.com

Maggie Plumcake. maggieplumcake@blogspot.com

Tocados Vanesa Aslan

What’s more, Kate offered four talleres for excellent Christmas gifts. From Christmas cookies to decorated napkins, I chose to make a simple bracelet with enough sheen and texture to dress up even jeans.

After checking out all of the rooms and chatting with designers, my mission was clear – to find a statement piece for my dress for Alvaro’s wedding. Thanks to Kate Mariela, I’ve had tons of inspiration lately. I spotted a snazzy black beaded necklace from Designs for M and tried it on. The gorgeous piece was the right price, and I was helping a local designer who looked to be younger than me do what it is she loves and get paid for it.

That’s what it’s all about isn’t it?

Looking for a place to stay in Seville? Grand Luxe Hostel offers premium accommodation with excellent services and Seville’s best terrace view. Just off the main tourist road, you can expect a pleasant stay with all of the amenities for a great price.

I was a gracious guest of Kate Mariela, Sevilla Trendy and Grande Luxe Hostel, but all opinions expressed are my own. You can check out photos from the event by following the hashtag #trendyXmas, or follow the sponsors of Trendy Xmas: @katemariela @grandluxehostal @sevillatrendy.

Filed Under: A Few of My Favorite Things, Andalusia Tourism, El Centro, fashion, Featured, photo post, Seville, shopping, Things to do in Sevilla · Tagged: , ,

LUXE: Seville’s Luxury Hostel

December 12, 2012 by · 4 Comments

When  I first moved to La Hispalense, I was in touch with Shawn, the woman behind Seville Tapas Tours, about an apartment. The balcony overlooked the bustling Mateos Gago Street and was within earshot of the Giralda’s massive church bells. I could image the smell of orange blossoms wafting into my bedroom window at night as the sounds below lulled me to sleep, but the apartment was not meant to be. Living right in the middle of the historic quarter would have been lovely, but perhaps a bit noisy.

When visiting, my friends who prefer to stay in the city center always look for a place near the Cathedral for its proximity to tapas bars and attractions. Tucked into a side street just steps off of the Plaza de la Virgen de los Reyes is Grand Luxe Hostel, a hostel concept offering premium accomodation in the middle of Spain’s most vibrant city.

The cobblestoned alleyway leads you to the heavy wooden door of Grand Luxe Hostel. The building, restored in the late 19th Century, is modern and fully-quipped, featuring in-suite bathrooms and rooms especially for families. Grand Luze features 64 for beds in a mix of private double, mixed dorms, girls-only dorms and private twin, all at afforable prices right in the heart of Seville’s quaint Santa Cruz neighborhood.

The building has several ammenities – such as an elevator, free wi-fi, a kitchen with complmentary breakfast, and even free gym access at nearby Cuesta Sport in the morning. What’s more, the open areas are comfy and condusive for mingling.

Owner Kate’s eye for design makes the space modern, bright and fun, while the building still retains its charm. In each room, guests enjoy free reading lamps, personal cubbies and private lockers.

The hostel’s best kept secret? The terrace views of the Cathedral and Giralda, which can be enjoyed with a complimentary glass of wine at dusk. The hostel is a prefect jumping off point for Seville’s famous nightlife – great tapas bars, flamenco peñas and cocktail bars are only a stone’s throw away from Grand Luxe, and it’s also within walking distance of the bus station for a quick getaway.

Owners José Luis and Kate

Rooms and bed are available from December 16th, 2012. You can find LUXE on Hostelworld, Hostelbookers or their personal website. They’ve also got a Facebook page, or you can look them up on twitter at @grandluxehostel.

I was not compensated in any way for this article. All views and opinions are my own.

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Filed Under: Accommodation, Andalusia Tourism, El Centro, Featured, Guiri Survival Tips, holidays, La Giralda, photo post, Product Review, Sevilla Center, Seville, Things to do in Sevilla, tourism · Tagged: , , ,
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