Remember my travel chapter of Barcelona?
If you don't, well...I was going to say shame on you but nope...I have to keep my innocent composure at all times.
So yeah feel free to check back Aly's Travel Book Chapter 3 because now it is time for chapter 4.
After Barcelona, I was thinking where to go next in Spain. I am not sure which country has the largest numbers of regions (My Geography subject is bad and that includes my country's region knowledge as well.) According to Mr. Google, Spain has around 17 regions with different cultures. After a long deliberation (which included the thought of budget...budget...budget...) with my friend, we decided to go for a short trip in Seville, Spain.
Why is it a short trip? Because we only get to spend 2 days and 1 night in this small city.
Seville is the capital of Southern Spain's Andalusia region and apparently is the fourth largest city in Spain. Due to time constraint, I only get to visit the Old Town of Seville. Although it is rated as the fourth largest city in Spain, but the environment there was very peaceful. It has a vast difference compared to Barcelona as the area that I focused on died down after 10p.m.. I can hear the sound of the wind and my friend's stinky breathing voice. It was as if we are at ease but scary at the same time because I was afraid of someone jumped out and demanded valuable items from me (YES.. I WATCHED TOO MUCH MOVIES) . The weather in Seville was cooler than Barcelona when I went there during 1st of November 2017. It was a good kind of cooling weather where you just need to bring a jacket out with you. (Unlike the country of UK where you need to bundle yourself up like a dumpling with extra leaves.)
The Old Town of Seville are famous for 3 UNESCO World Herritage Sites which are Alcazar palace complex, the Cathedral and the General Archive of the Indies. I am going to be honest with you now.
I only went for 2 of the famous sites in Seville.
But hey! Don't worry... I am going to expose some of my juicy tips on how I spend my 2 days and 1 night in Seville, Spain now.
Public Transportation
My only public transportation for the trip was the transit between the Seville airport and my accommodation. I had two choices of transportation for the transit :
- By taxi : Around 30 to 36 Euros per way and it will take around 30 mins.
- By airport bus : Around 4 Euros per way and it will take around 1 hour.
The comparison above was based on my research before the trip and the destination was to my accommodation for the night. It all depending on your budget for the trip as you do not want to spend too much on one place and neglect the other. If you want to reach your destination faster, you can take the easy option which is the taxi but you need to pay more. If you want to be a budget traveler like yours truly, you can take the airport bus provided and get down at the bus stop of your preference. You might need to walk for a distance in order to reach your destination and unlike taxi, you will reach the doorstep of your destination with style. Hence, you are actually paying more for the comfort and convenience.
Aiport bus
For more information, go to https://www.sevilla-airport.com/en/getting_there.php or http://www.ziptransfers.com/airport/sevilla?gclid=Cj0KCQiAieTUBRCaARIsAHeLDCTyKTMELP7kq9XQlxhWgnh5HDboZCYKUinJbR1Lf_8SfRM703luQB8aAu-CEALw_wcB
Accommodation
Although I am a major fan of Airbnb, but I chose to let go of my fandom for this trip. It was only one night in Seville and I did not want to spend extra for some high-end accommodation. Thus, I used the amazing website of https://www.hostelworld.com to search for my accommodation. I know what you are thinking...
What?Hostel?
Shared bathroom?
Zero-privacy?
Like What?????
I had that kind of thinking before as the hostel in my country is abit.. Well...not a bit... Way below my expectation. This website can search any kinds of hostel that you preferred based on the location, price , number of people and type of rooms. Since there was only 2 person for this trip, we decided to take a private room of the hostel which is safer for us. I am not saying that dormitory is not safe but sometimes it is a good thing to be extra cautious of your belongings because you will never know what will happen next. Although we took the private room, but the usage of the bathroom and toilet is being shared with other guests in the hostel. There were simple breakfast provided as well such as cereals, bread, cold cuts, fruits , milk, hot beverages and juice.
Overview of the accommodation : I will rate this accommodation a 5 out of 10. The bedroom was a little stuffy as there were no windows in the room. The bed looks clean but old in terms of the appearance. The only problem was the bathroom and toilet as they are 2 in 1 and there was only 1 bathroom-toilet on each floor of the hostel. The cleanliness of the bathroom-toilet was clean. The breakfast was very filling and good as well. The balcony on the top floor is absolutely amazing for evening view and a great hangout place with your friends. I will only recommend this place for its strategic location and reasonable price for a private room but definitely not worth it in terms of comfort.
Food
Since it was a short trip and limited time to travel around for awesome food, here are the two winners that captured my food soul.
1) Bodega Santa Cruz
Like I mentioned before, Tapas is like an essential food that you must try while travelling in Spain. I have to admit that people in Spain are pretty creative when it comes to Tapas. It's like they can mixed anything from sweet to savoury or mix them up into a superb MAMA-MIA gourmet dish. This little Tapas bar is 3 mins walk from Alcazar palace complex. Before you go to this bar, be mentally prepared as there are less sitting area in the bar. There are standing tables available so do not worry of zero table available to put your food down. It is also a pretty packed bar so be ready to queue outside of the bar and keep your hawk eye wide open for empty spots at all time. My friend and I were lucky to get a seating area in the bar. The menu was written in a large chalk board and guess what... Yeap...It is all in Spanish and I had to bring in Mr.Google Translate to save the day. But it wasn't much of a saving the day as the translation was a bit off (a.k.a. weird). So, we randomly ordered what was famous according to research and past reviews from the customers along with two glasses of chilled local beer.
Tortilla - Spanish potato omelette. It is a little bit salty but it goes well with the beer. This dish came with some biscuit sticks.
Braised pork cheek - This dish is the most famous dish in the bar and it is so full of flavours. It is not spicy at all and I can taste the tomato in it. You can dip the bread that they provided into the gravy and trust me, you will be flying up to the sky.
Braised beef. It looks like the 'daging lembu masak kicap' that we had in Malaysia. The only difference is that this is definitely not cooked in 'kicap'. The sauce that was braised with the beef was full of flavour and I can definitely taste the flavour of tomato in it. The beef was tender and this dish came with their homemade bread and potato chips.
Total bill: 16 Euros included the drinks
.png)
This is some basic Spanish Tapas and you can check them out with the English translation
2) La Campana
They said that there is always room for desserts and no matter how girls want to have a Victoria Secret body type, desserts always win. I came across this bakery near my hostel when I was strolling down the streets in Seville. This bakery is famous among the locals and they sell all kinds of pastries and cakes that made us drool all over the place. There are seating areas available outside of the bakery. If you plan to sit down and relax with some cakes and coffee, be sure to know what you want to eat before giving your order to the waiter. If you are not sure of what is the name of the pastry or the cake, you can snap a picture of it and show to the the waiter so that they can serve you right away. There are some pastries and cakes on the display did not have any pricing label or product tags to them . If you have a mindset like Indiana Jones or Sherlock Holmes, you can be adventurous to try these nameless and priceless desserts like I do.
Some pastries that we blindly ordered and surprisingly , these are good. A very sinful but delicious dessert meal for me and my friend.
I saw this pastry just came out from the kitchen and I immediately ordered it. The name of this pastry is Pastel Hoja and it is a lot of a portion. Each layer of this pastry is filled with almond flavour cream with almond nibs in it. The crispy puff pastry with the chilled almond cream and some dusted icing sugar on top was the bomb for the day.
Total bill : 12 Euros included two cups of coffee.
Attractions
Alcázar of Seville - This is the royal palace of Seville and it is listed as one of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Seville. It is originally developed by Muslim Moorish King. This palace has that Mediterranean vibe and I can spend 2 hours by walking around in the palace. The adult entrance ticket is expensive so remember to bring your student card to buy the entrance ticket as the price will be 3 times cheaper than the original price ( For student only).
A bath place in the palace
One of the shooting site for the drama "Games of Thrones'
Scenes that are taken from Season 5 ' Games of Thrones' in the palace.
Cathedral of Seville - Listed as one of UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is known as the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See. I was lucky to join in one of the Holy Communion service on that day. It was an amazing site to witness although I did not understand what the pastor was saying the whole time. It is best to go in with a student card for cheaper ticket and I would recommend you to enter the cathedral as you can climb to the top for a stunning panoramic view of Seville.
Some architecture design inside and outside of the cathedral.
A stunning view of Seville on the top of the cathedral.
Metropol Parasol - It is a wooden structure and it is designed by a German architect which completed in the year of 2011. It is like a modern slash classic architecture to it. I would highly recommend that you take picture or selfie below the building as you will definitely get very disappointed when you traveled up the escalator to have a nearer look. You can skip this tourist attraction if you have limited time of travel.
Since my flight to the next destination was late at night, we used our extra hours left in Seville wisely by randomly strolling down the Old Town streets. It is not necessary that you need to plan accordingly where to go next. Sometimes the most random place is the most beautiful place to enjoy. The peaceful streets in Seville and the warm personality of the locals there were just the perfect happy-ever-after ending in Seville.
I love to venture into small cities or towns sometimes as you can see the difference in terms of how they treat a tourist and the environment as well. I did not regret in making a short trip to Seville and I vowed to myself that I will definitely come back here next time to continue the rest of my adventure in other areas of Seville.
Barcelona..You have been good...
Seville.... You have been better...
How about Madrid?
Well... I guess you have to wait and find out yourself.
Chapter 5 of Aly's travel book coming soon. ( Malaysia time )
Do ask me any questions of my travel!
Cheers!
You’ve been upvoted by TeamMalaysia community. Do checkout other posts made by other TeamMalaysia authors at http://steemit.com/created/teammalaysia
To support the growth of TeamMalaysia Follow our upvotes by using steemauto.com and follow trail of @myach
Vote TeamMalaysia witness bitrocker2020 using this link vote for witness
I love how you broke down into different categories of expenses, down to the price!
We're still roaming around Asia but Europe is definately in the pipeline!
@maverickfoo Thank you! I want to let people understand clearly what I am writing so that they can have a clear mind in the places that they are interested. Asia is great too haha..I want to explore Asia countries more as well.
Haha love the meme at the end suits your question! 😂 And so lucky to be able to roam around EU!
@rubinamary hahaha thank you! I was a student exchange in UK so I was thinking like why not go travel around as well... Haha
@katrina90 Thank you! :)