The Purple Penguin

So when I was booking things for Seville I couldn’t get any tickets for today, either it was all booked up or there were no options for anything. Turns out this festival is very very big in Seville and is the start of the Christmas celebrations. But our dates were set by when we could get holiday and the nature tour so we did what we could.

We headed out to the Plaza de España which is actually better than hyped. It is huge and every time I thought I’d seen it, there would be something else or a new detail. You can also go up in parts of the building and overlook the plaza from the balconies. We were there for around an hour with Joe taking loads of photos. We then headed into the park opposite the plaza for a sit and a check of the map. We saw there was an Isleta de los Pájaros and a Fuente de las Ranas (small bird island and frog fountain). Well I had to see the frog fountain and you have to go past the island to get to the fountain so off we went. The frog fountain was worth it. We again headed down toward the river, but stayed up at street level while walking along it. Passed the Seville School of Art which is a really nice building, then went past the Palacio de San Telmo, which had a huge light navity scene in front of it. Joe was determined to come back to see it.

We ended up walking through an art market with lots of lovely things. It was mainly ceremic and jewellry but also had some woodworking and fabrics. There were huge queues outside the cathedral, but it looked like special entry for the festival as the signs were different. We had a lunch of tapas before heading back to the hotel.

As it was getting dark we headed out again, going for the navity scene we’d seen earlier. When we got down there it wasn’t lit up, so we sat on a bench to check our map for a restaurant. As we were poking at the phone suddenly everything lit up – we think it was the main lighting event as it was the start of the season and people were out in hordes. So many people in front of that navity scene all taking photos – it was wild. We then went to the main road to see those lights and again hordes, so crowded you could barely move. So we gave up and headed down quieter streets. Joe did take several photos and at one point we were by the river for photos.

Our guide had recommended a tapas place and we managed to find it quite by accident! And we got in just before the crowds (it filled up fast) – La Bodega de la Alfalfa. We had a selection of tapas and they were excellent. Then a slow walk back to the hotel.