- brace yourself for 112 photos in this post.. here we go! -
Despite the tiredness, I still found myself awake 5 hours after falling asleep x.x While I was scrolling through Instagram, playing Gardenscapes etc to keep myself occupied, Zoe was snoring away like a baby #jealousssssss
Eventually it was normal humane time to get up so we both started getting ready. First mission of the day was to get some coffee for Zoe (she's not a morning person guys..) on the way to the Cathedral. The good thing about Seville is that its tourist attractions/ monuments are mainly centralised, so it was quite easy to get from one monument to another by foot and the score part is that it's about 15minutes walk away from our hotel!
However, instead of using the main road to get there, Zoe wanted to explore all the little streets and at first I'm like, "WE'RE GOING TO DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" but after seeing other tourists dragging their luggage etc along the route, I had a change of heart and was quite glad we took the small route because we found all these little gems hidden along the way
Despite the tiredness, I still found myself awake 5 hours after falling asleep x.x While I was scrolling through Instagram, playing Gardenscapes etc to keep myself occupied, Zoe was snoring away like a baby #jealousssssss
Eventually it was normal humane time to get up so we both started getting ready. First mission of the day was to get some coffee for Zoe (she's not a morning person guys..) on the way to the Cathedral. The good thing about Seville is that its tourist attractions/ monuments are mainly centralised, so it was quite easy to get from one monument to another by foot and the score part is that it's about 15minutes walk away from our hotel!
However, instead of using the main road to get there, Zoe wanted to explore all the little streets and at first I'm like, "WE'RE GOING TO DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" but after seeing other tourists dragging their luggage etc along the route, I had a change of heart and was quite glad we took the small route because we found all these little gems hidden along the way
She found her favourite beer brand's street and insisted to have a photo, plus the building matches her outfit..
And then I found another building that matches my outfit lol. I love all these brightly coloured buildings!
Right across this building we found a cute little cafe and had breakfast (by breakfast I meant I had hot chocolate, and Zoe had coffee, eggs, ham & cheese) there.
I swear Seville was such an Instagramer's dream because everywhere you turn is "something Instragram-able"!
For example, this ceiling inside the cafe
This little orange tree view from our sitting spot..
The cafe was actually further up the road from the Cathedral so when we continued our adventure that morning, we could already see the Cathedral's tower from the cafe's street.. But because we were noobs with physical map, we didn't actually know how near we are..
Zoe: The Cathedral is nearby, cause see there's so many people there.. Surely that's a monument too.. Let's see where we are..... Okay this way! (walks the other direction away from the monument)
Because I have trust issues, I just had to make sure we're walking in the right direction so I opened my Google map and found out we're actually walking away from the Cathedral..
Me: BAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I can't believe we did that! "Oh look something tall, with crowds, clearly its important" *walks away from it*
Zoe: I read the map wrongly, sorry lah!
We got better after that, thankfully.
Once we realised out mistake we were at the Cathedral by the next 5 minutes..
I wonder why, I wonder how, yesterday you're telling me 'bout the blue blue sky, but all that I can see, is just an orange orange tree..
The Seville Cathedral is the largest cathedral in the world superseding Hagia Sofia upon its completion in 16th century and, is the third largest church in the world.
What is the difference between a church and a cathedral you ask? Churches are headed by priests while cathedral is headed by a bishop (bishop > priest). Since the world's two largest churches (the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida and St. Peter's Basilica) are not the seats of bishops, Seville Cathedral is still the largest cathedral in the world. #learnwithAisyathroughWikipedia
Neither of us are big fans of churches/ cathedral anyways, so we decided to not be part of the super long queue anyways to get inside the church and made our way to the Alcazar next door.
Some random kids shoes unclaimed by its owner that I found on the way there, til this day I still wonder why was it left there? :/
Bed of flowers (picture for my mother - she loves flowers) and the sea of people queue for the Alcazar in the background x.x
Thankfully we discovered that the Alcazar offers online purchasing for the tickets so we took that option instead of joining the queue #thankyouCelcomfortheroaming We also got student discount which saved us like 2/3 of the original ticket price. (Generally if you're 25 or under you get special youth discount in Europe)
So since we had some time to kill before we're allowed to get in the Alcazar, we went to other monuments around the area instead..
The Alcazar's exit
The other side of the Cathedral
The General Archives of the Indies. It's just an archive but I swear it could rival some palaces!
I just love the design of this place!
From the Archive, we decided to go to the Golden Tower (Torre del Oro) as we still had more time to kill before our entrance time to the Alcazar. The Tower was another 10 minutes walk away from the Archive, so we decided to get some Amorino gelato on the way there..
The Tower is a dodecagonal military watchtower that got its name due to the reflection it leaves on the river (during its golden days - get it get it? :p). The cool thing about the Tower is that, different floors are different shaped polygons, starting with 12-sided polygons at the bottom and ending with a circular at the top. These days it is a navy museum, but Aisya being Aisya who has no clue whatsoever about what different ships mean and etc spent the time counting the number of sides on each floor.. *peace*
The view of the Cathedral from the Tower
We stopped by the gift shop before we made our way back to the Alcazar. However since we had a lot of time (as you can tell, it's really not that far), we took the long way by the river just to see it and Im glad we did cause then we found people having a kayak race! So cooooool!
We also had the opportunity to pass by Plaza de Espana on the way back to the Alcazar
Once we made it to the Alcazar, we were actually quite relieved that we bought our tickets online cause the queue got even longer than the morning queue!
After we got in we were pretty much left in our own little world snapping away pictures and occasionally listening to the audio guide we got. Wasn't really the guide we were expecting to get cause it explained more about the architecture stuff of the building rather than the history of the palace etc #yawn
I've always loved this aspect of Islamic design - all its intricacies and attention to details.. it's probably one of my favourite part about Spain/ Andalusia
We decided to skip the Alcazar's garden as we were seriously hungry by that time and made way to find a place to have lunch.
We found a restaurant outside the Alcazar and had pizza for lunch. #AisyaandItalianFood
Once our feet had a good rest, our stomachs are full we decided to walk back to Plaza de Espana.
Along the way we found the University of Seville - lawa gila the entrance!
Then we got inside and felt a little bit depressed, as if we're entering some dungeon school or something, so we turned back out immediately. Hehehehe
These were some of the buildings opposite the university, such happy bright colours! We need more of these here hehe
About 15 minutes walk later we were back at Plaza de Espana and I must say, it was the highlight of Seville for me (sorry Alcazar! I've seen the Alhambra, you can't compare)
One of my favourite shot of Zoe!
One of my favourite shot of the entire trip - so glad that iPhone 8+ came in right in time of this holiday cause all the amazing shots you see here are from it.
I thought this was quite cute, engraved in stone. Wonder if they're still together, it'd have been almost 43 years!
Instamodel in the making!
The Plaza was built built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 which was attended by countries such as Portugal, the United States, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, the Republic of Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. Each Spanish region and each of the provinces of Andalusia were also represented.
The complex is a huge half-circle with buildings continually running around the edge accessible over the moat by numerous bridges representing the four ancient kingdoms of Spain. By the walls of the Plaza are many tiled alcoves, each representing a different province of Spain.
I chose Cadiz because it was the one empty, some people were napping all at the alcoves -.- But I could totally understand them, because seriously it was so beautiful and calming at the plaza thanks to the dude with the panflute!
We made our way back home once our phone and camera ran out of battery (at 1% I was still furiously taking photos of the plaza okay!) and film.. Lol thankfully we've gotten so much better at map reading that we didn't get lost or anything.
Back at home as we had a pretty long day we decided to just have dinner at home since I had maggi cups and do our pampering time #standard
Since the hotel has no kettle (they gave us coffee machine instead -.-), we had to order hot water in. The receptionist was so confused by our request and they delivered it in the cutest little tea pot enough to make tea for 1. So we had to order in one more lol
While "chilling" (the usual Aisya-Zoe way), we watched Harry Potter & the Sorcerer/ Philosopher's Stone. We didn't even finish half of the movie and we already snoozed out!
- Next part to be continued in another post as I sort through and filter even more photos -
- Next part to be continued in another post as I sort through and filter even more photos -
