What is living Spanish-style? Simple, avoid the sun and heat at all costs. As I said earlier - the forecast was for the temp to be in the hundreds. This place is deep in the south of Spain, nearer to North Africa than to the rest of Europe and it's a desert, pure and simple. So, do as the Spaniards do - get up early, get stuff done, hide from the sun during the hottest part of the day and then come back out at night. We rose at 7am and went out venturing for some food. As you can see from the photo below, the Spaniards ain't no dummies - they build the buildings close to each other for max shade and even string up shades between the buildings to block the sun.
Seven in the morning proved to be a bit too early for breakfast, nothing was quite open so we strolled around a bit. Turns out, our hotel was smack in the middle of everything. To be honest, "everything" wasn't so much - this is a small city with a huge cathedral near the center that dominates and a small "old town" section. We got a few shots of the cathedral, known as La Giralda just as the morning sun was coming up.
It's a smart looking cathedral, ornate and impressively oversized as compared to its surroundings.
There are signs of Moorish influence all around. The doorways, the windows, the architecture.
After about an hour we made our way back to a cafe called "El Horno San Buenaventura" which roughly translates to the "Oven of St Good Travels." The place has been open since 1385 supposedly - seems kind of a stretch to me. Anyway, I got a plate of eggs with ham and toast. Sounds rather ordinary, doesn't it? Anything but. The eggs were super-fresh with vibrant yellow yolks and the ham was Bellota. They feed the pigs nothing but a diet of acorns to make this ham. It is divine. After breakfast - back to the hotel for a short siesta.
4 comments:
When you say Seville is a small city, do you mean in area or in population? How does it compare (in either measure) with Madrid, Barcelona, Toledo, say?
Well, they claim to have 1.5 million in Seville but I have a hard time believing that unless it encompasses 22 miles worth of suburbs. We stayed in the middle of downtown and could walk around any stretch within 15 minutes. Barcelona and Madrid are much larger. Toledo is a tiny town on top of a rock - smaller than all of em.
The ham and eggs look good, but did you get the paella?
I sure did get some Paella - not a great version but it hit the spot.....
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