We had a wonderful, but HOT last couple of days in Seville. The temperature has reached almost 35 C on both days. Luckily, it wasn’t too humid, so when you were in the shade it was pretty comfortable still. However, we quickly adopted the Spanish siesta, as it was boiling in the afternoons. Both afternoons around 2:30-3:30 we headed back to our Airbnb for a little bit of playtime. Our Airbnb was a perfect location. It was located near San Marcos Plaza so it was only a 20 minute walk to the main attractions. Also it was by far Clara’s favourite Airbnb, as one of the bedrooms was decorated with princesses, castles and fairies and completely stocked with 2 bins of toys and stuffies - she was in 3-year-old heaven! Especially since she has made several comments about missing her toys at home lately. So the siestas played a dual purpose - a time to get out of the sun and an opportunity for her to play, which she has been craving.
Also just around the corner from our place was a little coffee shop that had a trampoline and ball pit, so two of the mornings we were in Seville, we went there to enjoy coffee and paid the 1 Euro for our daughter to jump around! It was a great compromise for all!!
Although we were doing a little slower of a pace of sightseeing, Seville has been one of our favourite stops on this trip. It definitely has a distinct Spanish flair to it and was beautiful - and there were orange trees everywhere!
Plaza de Espana & Maria Luisa Park
The Plaza de Espana was very beautiful and had tiles representing all of the different provinces of Spain. It was built in 1928 for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition.
There were lots of tourist things to do and our daughter was very entertained by the lady who pretended to be a statue with flowers and the bubble man located in the middle of the plaza.
Even though it was hot, she had a blast running after the bubbles and trying to pop them!
The Plaza de Espana is located within/on the outskirts of Maria Luisa park, which is adorned with lots of trees and gardens, and some playgrounds too. We rented a Cyclobus for 20 Euro/ 1 hour and toured around the park. There was a place up front for Clara to sit and pretend to drive so she loved it and Connor did as well. Since there was lots of shade - including a cover on the bike - it was quite comfortable to bike around.
It was a fun activity for her and afterwards she enjoyed stopping at one of the playgrounds to play.
Seville Cathedral
Our first afternoon in Seville, we decided to visit the Cathedral because it was inside and would give us a break from the sun and heat. The Seville Cathedral is the 2nd largest Cathedral in Europe and was quite exquisite. The altar piece was very detailed and it took almost 80 years to complete it!!! The cathedral was also interesting in that it holds the tomb of Christopher Columbus, where his remains were transferred from Havana, Cuba back to Seville in 1901. One of the little chapels even said it was where Ferdinand Magellan came back from his circumnavigation across the world to give thanks for the safe passage.
Flamenco Performance
While in Seville, it almost seems obligatory to watch a Flamenco show. However, most of the Flamenco shows don’t start until late in the evening. Some I found started around 8:30 p.m. and others didn’t even start until midnight, which with young kids doesn’t work for bedtime. So prior to our trip I researched and found the Museo del Baile Flamenco, which offers various shows starting at 5 p.m., which was more kid friendly for us! The great thing was kids 6 & under were FREE. They had some combined tickets that included admission to the museum and show, but museums aren’t really our forte with a 3 year old, so we opted for the 20 Euro show only ticket. The show was well done and Clara was quite interested when there were dancers not as much when they had the music only performances. She really enjoyed the footwork and tapping they did. Plus it was nice that we were out by 6 p.m. They also had drinks you could purchase while you enjoyed the show.
Real Alcazar
The other major site we visited was the Real Alcazar….however, it pretty last minute. Our first afternoon we had walked by and the line up was pretty short, but we opted to go to the Cathedral because we knew it would be cool inside there, and part of the Alcazar is outside. So the next morning we walked by and the line up was around the corner - easily a 45+ minute wait. So we thought when we walked by in the afternoon it might be better, but the line-up was almost equally as long. I asked one of the Spanish people who worked across the street about the line-up, and she said that normally the line-up between 2-3 p.m. is the shortest, but it didn’t seem like it that day and she suggested getting there around 8:30 a.m. in the morning for when it opens at 9:30 a.m. With 2 young kids standing in line that long and in the sun, just wasn’t an option for us. So we headed home and said we would walk by to see how the line was after our Flamenco show that evening.
After the Flamenco show we walked by and there was virtually no line - however, we only had about 40 minutes to visit the entire Alcazar. With the short attention span of kids and knowing this was our last full day in Seville, we decided to just pay the admission of 9.50 Euro for the adults and explored quickly. We probably did miss some of the places to visit, but we got to see the Main Hall, which has the iconic room, and then some of the gardens, so I think we did pretty well. With Clara we probably wouldn’t have been able to spend much longer than an hour there anyway and we don’t really get an opportunity to sit and read all the signage, so we felt it worked out pretty well. Especially since we avoided waiting in line during the heat of the day. The entire time Clara pretended she was Elsa and was showing us around her castle.
Spanish Tapas
We also really took to the tapas culture while we were in Seville. We had been doing meals at our Airbnbs for about 40 percent of the time, but all 3 nights we were in Seville, we decided to go out for tapas. All the places we visited were delicious and it was nice to try such a variety of food. Plus we could always find a little something for Clara & Connor to munch on. Plus most of the tapas were about 3 Euros per plate; a couple of the places even had specials where you could get about 5-6 Tapas for less than that. Plus it encouraged us to try a lot of new food that we may not have tried. They were all delicious. It was nice as well since all of us were pretty much still on Portugal time, which is an hour earlier than Spain. So we had a little later dinners and bedtimes, as it would be really hot to eat around 5:30-6 p.m. and then that of course meant we slept in later as well in the mornings, but it's all relative.
Although it was hot, we really enjoyed our time in Seville and are now off on our final leg to the Malaga beach area of Spain, along the Mediterranean coastline.
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