We stayed 2 nights in a little apartment right near the old town Centro and it was very entertaining. We mostly walked around and tried to go see the Real Alcàzar de Sevilla but tickets were sold out to get in and there’s not much to see from outside. Later in the day we went on a bike tour of the Plaza de España and surrounding park. A surprise was a 200yr celebration of the Spanish Police with a helicopter exhibit, and also a robot police dog – this was a huge hit with Axel.
I really enjoyed checking out a big city by bicycle instead of by foot or bus, especially with a toddler in tow, even if it does include many stops at fairly terrible playgrounds (the one Axel insisted we stop at today had many mosquitos, but also a slide toy in the shape of a train, so who can argue with that kind of trade off?). It lets us cover more ground and check out the biking infrastructure of new cities, with the freedom to choose our own adventure versus bus or train. It has drawbacks of course, like not being able to eat inside or stray too far from our bikes, ever, as we don’t have locks. Most places have patios and we prefer eating outside in the nice weather. Axel has delighted in running around bringing us “thingies” while at restaurants, and hauling one of us off on any mission to look for playgrounds or parks.
We had some good coffee and found some good tapas in Seville, too. Our favourite was a restaurant that just had a tapas taster menu, so at a set price you just got to try many of the dishes, which was great. We did try to go to El Rancillo, the oldest restaurant in Seville which was highly recommended, but it opened at 8pm and had too long of a line up to justify with a 2 year old. Another time, maybe?
And in the big picture, we were able to find restaurants that served us food in this town! Hurray!
