More Seville

A company called Feel The City offer free guided walking tours of Seville. We decided to take this in the morning, starting at 10am at out hotel. There we were met by Lola, who took us firstly on a tour of other hotels in the area, to pick up more passengers. We then assembled in the Plaza Puerto de Jerez, where more guides had brought their groups, and we were split up into English, Spanish and French-speaking parties. Lola led the English-speaking contingent, and after a quick count, we were off.

Lola gave us a bit of background about herself –she was a native Sevillian, with a degree in History, and very proud of her city. This is the ethos of Feel The City – they want you to know the place like a native. She therefore skipped over the boring bits and gave us a personal tour of the city.

We started off in the Plaza de la Trionfe, where we were enlightened as to the roles of the Muslims, the Christian Kings, and later the discovery of America; documents and similar being archived in the Indian House.

At the cathedral, she pointed out some graffiti on the walls. These date back to the 17^th century, but were only recently discovered when the cathedral was cleaned and restored from its previous pollution-encrusted black. The “vittores” spell “victor” in Latin and are declarations of graduation from university by the nobility of the time.

Among other sites that we visited were the first bakery in Europe; the cigarette factory, which is the scene of the opera Carmen and is now part of the university; and the Golden Tower, where Lola told us a story of King Pedro I, "The Cruel" and his pursuit of Dona Maria Fernandez Coronel, who wanted nothing to do with him. The king ordered her husband to war, where he was invetably killed. After hiding out in a convent for some months, she was eventually discovered again by the king, who pursued her through the nunnery – in a style reminiscent of a Benny Hill skit, according to Lola – a chase which ended in the kitchens, where there was a vat of boiling oil. She poured the boiling oil over herself and challenged the king “do you want me now?” (in between screams, I imagine). The king, fickle as ever, changed his mind, and she spent the rest of her life in a convent. On the anniversary of her death, Sevillians go to the convent to see her mummified body. A cheery tale.

 After that we saw the bullring, the second oldest in Spain (the oldest is in Ronda, which is nowhere near Wales). Like many of the younger generation, Lola is not in favour of bullfighting, but told us that it is unlikely to die out soon as it still enjoys royal patronage. We also looked out over the other side of the river, as Lola explained about Triana and the history of the poorer area outside the city walls, and how it became the birthplace of Flamenco, about which more later. We ended up in the Plaza De Espagna, a beautiful building which is now used as government offices. The whole tour lasted around three hours, and we were feeling a little footsore by then (indeed, one of our number had excused himself about halfway). As we were taking pictures, we were importuned by some American ladies who, on discovering that we did indeed speak English and came from New Zealand, said ”oh, I know someone in New Zealand, his name’s Bob, do you know him?” I kid you not. Anyway, they took our photo.

At the end, Lola asked us politely to review the tour on Tripadvisor.com, as they rely on good ratings there. She also invited us to sign up for further excursions – this time with a price tag – but with no pressure. We decided that the flamenco evening would suit us fine, so we coughed up for that.

In the afternoon we grabbed a quick lunch of assorted jamon Iberico and salad at the first semi-respectable establishment we came across; then headed back to our hotel for a cooling swim in the rooftop pool.