Branching out from Seville

I promised to write a second post about our week in Seville, and as it’s now Sunday again, I realise I’d best get on with it. 
A week in one place is generally more than I can cope with, especially if it’s a city. My wander lust is much more geared to seeking out other more rural places, and since Seville has a pretty good public transport system, we extended our reach beyond the end of the metro line by taking buses to Gines and Sand Lúcar la Mayor and the train to Huelva on the coast.
Buses in the Seville urban area are amazingly cheap the further you go. We were very fortunate in that the main bus station was very close to our shabby digs, so we wandered across the road one day, picked a name from the board, and waited for the bus to arrive. Okay, it wasn’t quite as random as that; I’d seen where Gines was on the map and thought it might be a nice place to aim for as a destination. Only 15kms from the city, I thought it would be easy to return if we didn’t like it. As it happened we were completely charmed. It cost us the grand total of €1,40 each to get there, exactly the same as it would have cost to do a trip across town in Seville. What we realised was that it doesn’t matter how far you go, the price is the same for any trip inside the urban area of Seville.
Gines, however, is very much its own place and very pretty. Our bus took us through other towns we’d have liked to see as well, but we had to decide on a goal and were very happy with our choice. It is a small town where people live, congregate and lead their lives without apparently needing to go to the city. The main street was lively with locals chatting to each other, the architecture of the houses and buildings was as charming as it can get, and we enjoyed a refreshing cup of coffee on an expansive outside terrace where families were eating and a group of men were clearly having a regular gathering of the (older) lads. We bought a few groceries in the local Spar shop, where the grocer himself was more than welcoming and friendly, and Koos even felt relaxed enough to have a kip in the town square.
Here are a few snaps I took of the town.

I loved this staircase with it tiles and garden courtyard in Gines

Our second outing was to Huelva, a town on the coast. I’d read quite a bit about it before we went to Spain and was told it wasn’t favoured by tourists, which somehow made it more appealing. We took the train from Seville’s Santa Justa station on Monday the 15th and arrived in Huelva at a little after 11:30 following a journey of an hour and a half. The scenery on the way was gentle, rolling hills without much to distinguish them  but we enjoyed both the trip and seeing a little more of what was probably the coastal plain.
The weather was somewhat grey in Huelva, but we liked it all the same. It’s a place where people live, like Gines, and it doesn’t put on any airs. Two things appealed to us no end: one was the discovery of its industrial history as represented in the restored pier: now a pedestrian walkway, but once the loading quay for ships transporting copper from the nearby open cast mines.  If you watch the brief video, it  gives you a glimpse of the scale of the mining in the area. They only stopped operating about 25 years ago. 
In addition, if you dig into the history of the mines and the pier (apologies for the pun), you will find the latter was designed and built by the British who had interests in Huelva’s developments. 
Huelva was also the place where Christopher Columbus (Christobel Colon in Spanish) was said to have embarked on his travels to the New World. There’s a statue of him in the centre of town, and an even bigger sculpture of him outside town which we didn’t actually see.
Cranes next to the pier and riverside
The amazingly well restored pier as a monument to Huelva’s mining past

 

Christoper Columbus…Go west, my sons…
More pretty Spanish tiles
What made our visit even more special, though, was a meeting with dear friend and renowned author, Stephen Powell. We met him at a bus stop in Estoi in the Algarve three years ago and have kept in touch ever since. It was really lovely to see him again and we spent a few very enjoyable hours catching up at a very pleasant restaurant, followed by a walk along the pier. I should mention that Stephen is the author of two excellent travel books: one about Portugal and the other about the Caucasus, both of which focus on the marathon walks he made in these countries. You can find his fascinating accounts here on Amazon. Given that he was a Reuters correspondent for around 27 years, the quality of his writing speaks for itself.

A Happy meeting
There’s a lot more I could say about Huelva, but I think it would need its own post. Suffice to say we enjoyed our visit very much and can recommend it, not so much for its eye candy as for its history and its wonderful rivers.
Our last excursion was again by bus to the beautiful, and probably touristy, town of Sanlúcar la Mayor, which is roughly twenty-five kilometres from Seville. Again, the bus ride was incredibly cheap and cost less than €4 return for the two of us. It was quite a walk from the bus stop down to the town centre, and since it was a bit drizzly we first had coffee at a café on the main through road. This proved to be a feast in itself. Just for something extra, we ordered a piece of chocolate cake, which eventually appeared smothered in chocolate sauce and with a large scoop of ice cream. It was quite a creation, and utterly delicious.
Luckily for us, the skies cleared and it turned into a beautiful day. We first walked to the station, another of the region’s classic Moorish designs, and then we strolled to the church square, which was quite captivating. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s heaving with tourists in the summer. During our visit, it was quiet and peaceful in the sunshine; the station was deserted; and the cafés in the square were empty. Nevertheless, we loved it. It was only later we discovered how much more we could have seen there had we done a bit of research beforehand, rather than just picking a name on the bus timetable. There’s a bit more about it on this website.
There’s heaps more I could mention about Seville and all the the beautiful sights we’ve seen, but that would fill a small book. On our last day, we finally visited the cathedral, which is apparently the third largest church in the world, after St Peter’s in Rome and St Paul’s in London. The immensity was something to behold, but like the curate’s eggs, I only liked parts of it. Impressive, yes, opulent, yes, but beautiful? Not inside so much. I felt it lacked coherence and had an overdose of medieval bling. The exterior is, however, stunning and quite magnificent.
Here are a few of my photos of the interior areas:

So that’s about wrapped up Seville. Apologies to Tom Williams – there are absolutely no barges in this post, but I hope the cranes, the pier and the river at Huelva make up for it a little.
Enjoy your week, allemaal and I’ll fill you in with news on the home front next week.