Ah to wake up in Spain and feel our trip has really begun.  But just to backtrack to yesterday for a bit and a few rules for cycle tourists arriving in a new country – all of which we managed to break

1. Don’t plan to cycle from the airport if you are due to arrive in the late afternoon because
2. Your flight will be delayed
3. It will take longer than you think to put the bikes back together after they have been rattled around in the bike bags on the plane (although David did an admirable job)
4. You will need to change an inner tube just as you set off

All of which happened to us and so we were heading out of the airport at 9.30pm rather than 6pm.

If you do plan to cycle from the airport look carefully at the cycling directions before you leave.  I had had a quick look at google maps ‘bike’ route  – 12km, taking 40 minutes. However when we belated set off we realised this required legging it across a motorway, across the barriers with bikes and luggage to get to the bike path on the other side. Not thinking this was advisable (how many people told us to ‘take care’ before we set off??), David managed to quickly plot a new route which unfortunately added a good half an hour before we were back virtually where we started but on the other side of the motorway and on the bike path. So by then it was 10pm and we broke our immutable rule.

DON’T RIDE IN THE DARK.  Luckily most of it was well lit and we had lights.  In fact when we hit the 3 lane highway into the city centre (gulp – not part of the plan but new route necessitated) it was very well lit, but also rather busy. 

We were peddling like fury because I had been messaging the owner of the apartment we had rented for our stay in Seville through the evening giving her a later and later arrival time (it’s quite rare now that she needed to let us in rather than have a key box for us to use. )  After our message at 10.15 saying another half an hour  I felt her patience snap. In fact she said that if we did not arrive by 11 she would mark us as a ‘no show’. 10.35 and we finally hit the bike path following the river down a very fancy boulevard in the city centre – no time to take it in as we peddled faster.  Over the bridge into the Triana area and we reached the front door of the apartment at 10.50pm.  The owner let us in, gave us a peremptory show around via google translate and at 11 announced she was leaving and going to bed! Fair enough really!

We however were totally wired and starving as we hadn’t eaten properly since breakfast. So we immediately headed out again, found a takeaway pizza place, had a beer while waiting and gobbled down the rather tasty pizzas before collapsing into bed!

Which takes me back to the start – waking up in Spain and feeling our trip had really started!

So we had a relaxing start to the day sitting in bed and looking at the guide book at the numerous amazing sites we could try and cram into one day. This generated a new rule – plan a day off in one of the most touristy places in Spain before you get there – as we found the on line tickets for the cathedral – fully booked, the Alcazar – fully booked, The art gallery – not open on Mondays. Luckily David found a guided tour of the cathedral in English at 1pm with 2 spaces left so we booked that and in fact gladly accepted a quieter day. I totally fell in love with Spain again as we tootled around on our bikes – such a great way to get the feel of a city.

We started in a very pleasant way, meeting Hugo for  breakfast. This gorgeous (Bernie is writing this bit), extremely lovely 22 year old young man is the son of the family Becky nannied for when she started her year off in Spain. We met them when the whole family came to Becky and Pen’s wedding 2 years ago. Hugo was working in Seville and happened to live in Triana, five minutes from where we had out apartment. He took us to a small place round the corner where we had tostadas, great coffee and a good catch up. Oh yes, this is why I was loving Spain again.

Then to a bike shop where we got what we needed, and shopping in Lidl (much the same as the UK but the punters are better dressed).  My good cycling friend Paul, who lives part the year in Spain, reminded me that distances between shops are long and starting off with all the food you need for the day is another essential rule in this country.

And so to the Cathedral.  What can I say about this amazing monument to over a 1000 years of faith and the need to make money from the faithful.  It has all been said – but the highlight was possibly a silver casket containing a much revered relic – a thorn from the crown of thorns that they put on Jesus’ head before he was crucified.  Who would have thought that someone had the foresight to nab the crown of thorns with the idea “better keep that, it could fund my pension”!  If I looked carefully at the lower part of the silver casing, there was a large thorn! 

That was not really the highlight.  The sheer space inside was jaw droppingly vast, with amazing levels of gold and silver.  This place was a former mosque but was then built up with the wealth coming from the New World.  Christopher Columbus’ memorial is here (even if only part of his body is in the casket) and it may be that those who came back from their “adventures” not only carried gold and silver but also memories of things they were worried might have led to eternal damnation.  Here, accordingly to the mindset of the time, the church could help – a sizeable contribution to the alterpiece, the dedication of a new chapel and funding continuous masses for the wrongdoer could all stand to the person’s credit in the eternal ledger and thus pave the way to a good life after this one.  It was a totally sensible, logical and mutually beneficial system – and one that led to the church getting rich enough to be able to create the wonderful buildings we admire today.

After the tour we found coffee and cake – as you do – and ambled back to the apartment for a rest.  We start the cycling tomorrow but Seville is somewhere to which we hope to return.