October 12
Happy National Day of Spain! October 12th is the day that Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas which is significant since Spain is the country that funded his journey. It’s also Nuestra Señora del Pilar, another holiday in Spain that celebrates the Virgin Mary with a 9-day feast in Zaragoza.
Fiesta Nacional de España, Nuestra Señora del Pilar, Columbus Day…no matter the country, it seems like I’m not meant to have class today. And what is a girl to do with a four day weekend in a foreign country? Go to Seville and Granada, of course!
My friend, Tsengel, proposed the idea to me and I instantly agreed. Tsengel is from Mongolia, but came to the United States when she was 17 years old to attend university (so she speaks three languages!).
It takes thirteen hours by bus to get to Seville from Bilbao, nearly the longest distance one can go in Spain without crossing any borders. We don’t leave until 9:00 at night, so it makes sense that I don’t start packing until 7:00, right?
October 13-Seville
Our bus pulls into the station at 10:00 in the morning. Hungry and still tired—a bus is not the place to get a full night’s sleep—we head to McDonald’s of all places for breakfast. With coffee and sugar in my veins, I feel much more awake.
Our first stop is our hostel, which is very close to the scenic center of Seville. Even though it’s too early for check-in, we’re able to sneak in and put our bags away. The hostel itself is brand new, with fingerprint scanners instead of keys among other things. We’re in a six person room, and two of the other occupants are also from the Basque Country!
The front desk clerk is extremely helpful, and helps us avoid a massive line outside the cathedral. She tells us that tickets bought at the Iglesia Colegial del Divino Salvador (or, more simply, the Church of St. Salvador) count for both the church and the cathedral. For the price of one ticket, we visit both places and don’t have to wait in line at either!
The church is beautiful, but we don’t linger very long. It’s not that large, plus the cathedral is the real catch. La Catedral de Sevilla is boasted to be the largest gothic cathedral in the world, and I can believe it. I love gothic architecture with its intricate designs and haunting lines.
The cathedral used to be a mosque in the 12th century, and parts of it are still conserved as such. Only fifty years after the mosque was constructed, the ‘reconquest’ of Spain caused a surge of catholicism, and the cathedral was built.
We see plenty of awe-inspiring sights within, but nothing holds a candle to the monument that takes up the centerpiece of the right wall. Ironically enough, the day after we celebrate Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, Tsengel and I get to see the very tomb he’s buried in.
After walking through the magnificent structure, we take a break in the orange garden. It’s mutual that we don’t have the energy to go through the royal palace at that moment—we actually decide to skip the interior of the Real Alcázar based on the advice of the hostel’s front desk clerk—so it’s lunch time!
We eat at an Italian restaurant and follow the motif with gelato for dessert. Of course, I have to stay true to the girl that lived in Rome and I order a Margherita pizza for lunch and stracciatello gelato afterward. For an extra twist, I order a macaroon on top. The combination of French and Italian food while in Spain is a bit of delicious surrealism.
There’s a great spot to watch the sunset in Seville, so we have some time to kill. We buy some groceries for dinner, see some quaint little shops and take a slight breather at the hostel before heading west. As we walk, I can see the Arabic influence growing stronger in the architecture.
The Metropol Parasol is the ‘mushroom’ building that is the place to be on a Friday night. We arrive as the sun is going down and get on the rooftop in time to see the various churches—and the cathedral—light up in gold against the deep blue of the sky. The rooftop path winds up and down before finishing at a bar. We each grab a drink before heading back down to see the market that thrives under the canopy of the latticed building.
The open-air market is hard to deny. We each purchase a trinket before we can escape back to the hostel and collapse into bed.
October 14-Seville and Granada
Tsengel and I are up and out the door by 9:00 the next morning. We check out of the hostel but use a free locker to store our heavier bags. The first stop on our itinerary is the Plaza de España.
There aren’t many words that can describe this plaza. It’s nearly contradictory in its existence, managing to be imposing and intimate at the same time. The horseshoe shape is perfectly symmetrical with a small canal and grand fountain in the center.
There’s a street performer blowing bubbles, a vendor selling hand-painted fans, a couple of men renting rowboats for the canal. Amongst it all, tourists mill around soaking it in. Like everywhere else in the city, there are horse carriages trotting around. The temperature doesn’t start out too warm but it quickly heats up as the sun rises. Tsengel and I buy a couple of fans like true Sevillians, or perhaps more like Sevillian tourists, as we walk around the plaza. The edifice is gorgeous and well deserving of being the home of the Spanish government in Seville.
After we have our fill, we wander through the nearby park towards the river. Around midday, we catch a river boat that will take us up and down the river and shows us more of Seville from a different perspective. There’s the opera house, bull-fighting ring, the Golden Tower and some of the more important bridges in Seville’s history. It takes an hour to cruise to and from; with the cool breeze coming off the water, it’s a welcome break from the relentless heat.
Our bus to Granada doesn’t leave until five, so we cross the river to the neighborhood of Triana. I have a burger (so very American of me) while Tsengel eats at the neighboring Indian restaurant…we’re not doing so great at eating Spanish this weekend!
Triana is a beautiful, not to mention a very Arabic, neighborhood. There’s an indoor food market right on the river that is authentic. It’s crowded, vendors are yelling, consumers are haggling, there’s fish on ice that look like they’ve just been pulled out of the river and the coup de grâce are the cows’ legs with their hooves still attached. It’s dirty and real and I love every minute of it. Unlike cultured farmer’s markets in America, this has an element of anything goes. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a young boy steal an apple from the frutería like in Aladdin!
All too soon, it’s time to leave Seville. I have a hard time saying that I like the southern city more than Bilbao. The architecture and Middle Eastern influence are incredible and I would not hesitate to return. Although I don’t believe I could ever spend any amount of time south of Madrid in the summer months. Even in mid-October, Seville is at a toasty 90 degrees Fahrenheit. For that reason alone, I’m grateful that I chose the coastal Bilbao over any other city.
The bus ride to Granada is a blissfully short three hours. This time around, the promised wifi actually works and I use the time to catch up on social media like a true millennial.
Upon arriving, Tsengel and I walk to our Airbnb. Our hosts are unfailingly polite…and speak completely in Spanish, in an accent very different from the tempered Basque one I’ve grown accustomed to. It’s a moment of quiet pride when Tsengel and I carry on a semi-decent conversation before we take their recommendations and visit a local bar. Knowing we have to wake up well before the sun in the morning, we only have a drink apiece and head back home to sleep.
October 15-Granada
La Alhambra is the most visited attraction in all of Spain, beating even La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Built in the year 889 as a small fortress upon the tallest hill (yes, only 889 years after the death of Jesus Christ!), it had a dismal existence until the Moorish King renovated it. La Alhambra became a royal palace in 1333, for the sultan of Granada. As can be seen in most of the surrounding area, this Moorish influence is still very much viable today.
Catholicism came in 1492 with Ferdinand and Isabella, and the palace’s mosque became a church. Catholic rulers lived there until the 16th century. La Alhambra wasn’t again used as a royal palace for hundreds of years, but instead for homeless and even soldiers during Napoleon’s raid of Spain. Found and restored by scholars in the 19th century, it is now well managed and includes multiple different sites, the massive gardens of Generalife among them.
Therefore, tickets are nigh on impossible to find less than two months in advance.
There is a caveat, however! During my research, multiple sources told me that although thousands of tickets are sold online, the staff keeps a couple hundred for same day sales. If one is desperate enough for tickets, they can wait in life and hope to snag one of them.
Don’t arrive any later than 6:30 in the morning, one blog advised me. Inwardly, I’m groaning as I read it. 6:30 is too early in the morning for my night-owl body. Then I glance at the walking time to La Alhambra from the Airbnb and groan again.
It’ll take one hour to walk there, and of course public transportation in Granada doesn’t get up and running until 7:00.
That’s how Tsengel and I come to be wandering through the streets at 5:30 in the morning. It’s quite a jaunt, and as I noticed before, La Alhambra sits on top of a hill. It’s the perfect location for a fortress, but a bad location for my burning calves.
Much to my relief, however, we make it in line with only forty people in front of us. We have a long wait in the cold, but pass the time until the ticket counter opens at 8:30 by talking to those around us. A guard shows up a few times to insist that there are no more tickets for the day, but we ignore him. There’ll be same day tickets, there’s always same day tickets. As long as no one buys more than their fair share, Tsengel and I are confident that we’ll be able to see one of Spain’s great wonders.
The sky seems to brighten all at once as the clock ticks past 8:00 in the morning. Others, pre-bought tickets in hand, begin to arrive. Our line jostles around, moving from one waiting area to another. I begin to feel anxious. Why doesn’t this seem more organized? Isn’t this a daily occurrence?
Then, the bad news; there are no same day tickets today. There are no tickets at all, online or otherwise. Even the partial access tickets are nonexistent. Most of our line of hopefuls leave at this news, but a few of us stubbornly wait it out until 8:30. Disappointed and exhausted from the long walk to the fortress, Tsengel and I take a bus into the city center and grab breakfast at a cafe.
We have no other plans for the day, so we quickly do a Google search for other Granada attractions. There’s a few in our radius, including another cathedral and something called La Alcaicería.
We spend a few hours wandering around La Alcaicería, which is several blocks of Arabian stores selling everything from scarves to hanging lamps. With our wallets a little lighter and our bags a little heavier, Tsengel and I start heading back towards the Airbnb to pick up our bags. Like this morning, it will be another hour’s walk and neither of us have the energy—or the time before our bus to Bilbao leaves—to go on foot. That’s when the bad news of the day continues; due to the national holiday(s), the two main streets that lead us directly back to the Airbnb are closed for a parade. Not only are there no busses or trams to take, there are also no taxis.
We make it back to the Airbnb with just enough to time to greet our hosts, sling our bags over our shoulders and take off again. Thankfully, the Granada bus station is small and we find our bus easily. We have another long bus ride in front of us, and I’m relieved to relax after the mad dash from the city center.
I know I will visit Granada again, for La Alhambra if nothing else. The city is beautiful, undeniably, but I prefer Seville of the two. It’s larger, with more attractions and a river comparable to the Grand in Michigan. However, if the weather this past weekend is any indication of the climate, I will probably limit my visits to the dead of winter!
