Seville - The New (Throwback post)

Metropol Parasol, Seville

Whilst Seville does the old bit very well, that really isn't all it has to offer. It is a vibrant and modern city too. We were, as in most places in Andalucia, staying in an Airbnb. Our host was great at offering suggestions for good places where the locals choose to eat, and indeed, she took us to try out one of her favourite tapas bars, called Eslava. I would highly recommend it, but be prepared for it to be very busy.

We were pretty impressed with the eating options here in Seville in general actually, including a few simple but good quality places (that I can't remember the names of,) around Plaza Hercules, and some great pinchos places.

Flamenco, Seville

And as I am talking about food and drink, even though they aren't new, I must mention a couple of tiny little traditional bars that we rather liked. There was the Taberna Manolo Cateca, and the Alvaro Peregil. Both are places where you can try out the local wines, including the Vino de Naranja, which is perhaps something of an acquired taste, but I liked it.

Whilst in Seville, it would almost seem wrong not to get along to a bit of flamenco. If you read our earlier post, you will know that we caught a bit of the music in the more natural setting of bars, or penas, in Cadiz and Jerez. Here, we decided to find a flamenco show.

Flamenco, Seville

We didn't want anything too tackily touristy so went for the much recommended Casa de la Memoria. The show was simple, with one guitar player, a singer and a couple of dancers, and had a more modern influence in both style and dress. Obviously most people there were tourists, but it didn't feel like quite such a clichéd experience as I suspect many do.
One thing we particularly liked in Seville was the Metropol Parasol. Built in March 2011, it is a modern building that houses the once open air market that used to be in the square, a restaurant and a concert space, as well as a small exhibition of the archaeological remains that were found during the development.

The real attraction though, is the fabulous walkway over the top. It looks great from the ground, but really comes into its own when you are on it. The structure flows organically, undulating and winding around to provide excellent views across Seville.

Flamenco, Seville

It may seem strange to include the Conjunto Monumental de la Cartuja, an old Carthusian Monastery, in a post about the 'new' bit of the city, but bear with me. The monastery has not housed monks for quite some years, being turned into a porcelain factory by Englishman Charles Pickman in 1839, hence the row of lovely bottle kilns.

The porcelain factory closed in the 1980s and the site is now the home of a modern art gallery, with some rather wacky installations. Honestly, I can't say that I especially enjoyed most of the artworks, but a few were interesting and it is a pleasant place to wander around on a nice day.


Sadly, my loss of photos problem hit badly from Seville onwards, so again there are some missing from this post, and I have none at all from here on in Spain.

Jerez - town and horses (Throwback post)

Jerez station

After Cadiz, we moved on to Jerez de la Frontera, one of the key places for that much maligned drink - sherry. But we'll save the sherry for the next post, and for now, focus on the city in general. Although in fairness, when even the name of the town is so synonomous with the drink, that is pretty hard to do.

Jerez

Jerez is actually a lovely place to visit. It is an attractive town, with interesting old architecture. And we discovered that it is quite easy to get lost. There are a couple of places that we saw or went in that we have no idea where they were, because we found them when we were just wandering around the streets with only the vaguest idea of our location.

There are a number of churches scattered around, and one shrine in particular (which is one of those that we found when we were lost so don't know which it is or where), which appeared to be dedicated to the healing of children.

Shrine, Jerez

Hanging all around the entrance were discarded prosthetic limbs and other such aids, almost all in young child sizes, with clothing, toys, letters and prayers. I'm not quite sure whether anyone actually thought they were healed - I mean I think we'd have heard if anyone had grown back a leg for example - but clearly a lot of people draw hope and comfort from the belief that it could happen.

Jerez Castle

There is a castle here, but it didn't desperately excite us after Malaga and Granada, so we just took a look from the outside.

The cathedral on the other hand, looked very impressive outside, but was unfortunately closed to visitors whenever we were there.

Jerez Cathedral

Jerez Cathedral

Equestrian Art School, Jerez

We did pay a visit to the rather grandly named Real Escuela de Arte Equestre - or Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art. We didn't go for one of the shows, we just looked around the place and dropped in on one of the practise sessions for a while.
When we were there at least, the training is not like a full rehearsal of a show, more a collection of different horses and riders practising different things at once, but it is interesting to watch them.

Equestrian Art School, Jerez

Jerez bars

We found a number of nice little places for tapas and drinks too.  This is quite a traditional seeming place, so the tapas feel more classic somehow, less like they have been updated for urban trends or tourist expectations. And the guy still trundles his little barrowload of fresh seafood around to the bars, selling them by the cone.

Jerez bars

It is helped by being low season, but Jerez doesn't really feel like a touristy town, outside of the obvious places, as most of the visitors come in on coaches to do a tour of the sights and then leave again. So especially in the evenings, the number of tourists was pretty low. That meant that when we went into the bars, most of the people there were local, so you got a much better feel for life here.

Flamenco, Jerez

It also means that when they have their flamenco sessions, even though visitors like us are there, it still feels like an authentic experience, rather than a show for the tourists. We went to one little bar that our airbnb hosts recommended, and were lucky enough to arrive just in time to grab a seat before the place filled up completely.

Flamenco, Jerez

The flamenco group that came on was a trio, with a guy on guitar, another guy on the cajon (a type of hand drum), and a female vocalist. They were excellent, and certainly popular with the locals.

One man, who must have been in his eighties at least, was very enthusiastic, clapping along, and getting up to dance too. I suspect that in his youth he was probably quite a good flamenco dancer, as he was pretty nifty even now, despite being obviously less nimble.

Jerez

Jerez

Jerez

Cadiz - ancient alleys, topical talks (Throwback post)

Cadiz

Cadiz was an interesting place to visit, made more so because of the person we were sharing a home with. We were, as most places in Andalucia, staying in Airbnb accommodation, where we rent someone's spare bedroom. We like it because it enables you to meet locals and get inside information on where to go.

Sometimes, you can also get in to some really interesting conversations; we did so here, albeit slowly, because our host Helena didn't speak much English, so a lot of the time we spoke in our rather stilted Spanish.

Cadiz

Helena is a lawyer by profession, but was unemployed at the time, in common with so many people in Cadiz. She was telling us about the youth unemployment rate being close to fifty percent and that many people were in real financial difficulty.

We asked her about a demonstration that we had seen outside a bank in town, and she explained that it was protesting about the ease with which the banks were repossessing peoples' homes. It has become a very big problem here and other parts of Spain.

Cadiz

Helena explained that she, and many Spaniards, were very envious of the UK's position in Europe, being part of the EU but not the Euro - but as I am writing this post the referendum, perhaps the less said about that the better!

It was clear then, that Cadiz is a troubled city. It has little opportunity to expand physically, because geographically it is on a spur of land that reaches out into the ocean, and between that and the unemployment rate, many young people are leaving to find work elsewhere.

This, of course, creates a downward spiral, which it is difficult to escape from; I do hope that they manage to improve the situation here. The statistics suggest that it is looking slightly better over the last year, but progress is certainly slow.

Cadiz Cathedral

All of which might explain why we felt that the city lacked something in atmosphere and vibrancy. It was a nice place, with some lovely old architecture, but in the main it often seemed a little closed - sometimes quite literally in the case of restaurants or shops.

Cadiz Cathedral

That said, we quite enjoyed wandering around the maze of old windy streets - we got our bearings eventually - and along the seafront.

There is a bit of ancient city wall to walk along, and if you feel so inclined, the 18th century Tavira watchtower has great views and a camera obscura at the top.

The Cathedral is a bit of a hybrid of styles, but is a most imposing building, especially as the old town is generally very low-rise.

Cadiz

There is also a market, which due to the high proportion of fish stalls - Cadiz is of course very big on fresh fish and seafood - I steered mostly clear of. But I did hold my nose just long enough to get a photo of the stalls with the swordfish and the little shark on them.

Talking of seafood, there was a festival of some sort going on at times here - perhaps a precursor to the Carnival that was due shortly after we left. There was live music, which we though was a competition of some sort, and on one day, people were thronging around La Caleta Beach, between the two old castles, and one of the main activities seemed to be the opening and eating of sea urchins.

Cadiz

Cadiz

Cadiz

Rather more to my taste, were a number of great little bars that we found, one in particular that had an excellent variety of rums at comparatively reasonable prices. We figured we would do our bit for the economy here!

Talking of bars, we did find a nice little music bar - I think it was called El Pelicano - where they had a great flamenco act on. Not the touristy, dressed up and dancing style, just two guys and a guitar.

Oh, and as a last point on Cadiz, when reading up on it, I happened to notice which cities worldwide it is twinned with. And it generally has some pretty good places that it has been linked to - Montevideo in Uruguay, Buenos Aires in Argentina, Cartagena in Colombia, Tangiers in Morocco and Havana in Cuba. The UK has given it Medway; I'm not going to say anything else about that, I'll just leave that for you.

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Cadiz

Cadiz

Cadiz

 

 

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