With the strong desire to eat tapas and explore a bit of the flamenco cityland, we left Lisboa in the evening and arrived in Sevilla past midnight just to confirm that the nightlife here is really buzzy, mainly due to the international students eager to integrate in the Andalusian culture. We suddenly found ourselves on the narrow streets filled with girls and boys, cervejas and tapas. We were too tired after the road so eventually decided to discover more of the city during daylight.
So the next day, we took the best vehicle in the world, our feet, and walked around with the sole idea of stumbling upon Sevilla´s surprises…
Three surprises we had:
1. The Spanish food
2. The cobblestone colorful alleys
3. Sevillanos enjoying the daylife as much as the nightlife
As a gourmand, food is always the first thing on the list you talk about when you experience a different culture. Since we left Lisboa with tapas on our minds, the local tapas was what we wanted to try first. Just to have an idea of what a tapa is, except if you want to google it directly, it is a meal in miniature, which served along with 2-3 others, might get you bellyful.
There is another specific Spanish plate which you will find on all the Sevillan restaurants menus that is, paellas, an exquisite way of rice cooking. Seemingly, there are more recipes of cooking paella, but the one we tried is a mixture of rice, seafood and chicken.
The cobblestone streets, with orange trees at every step are crawled with small squares, shops, cervejarias and tapas bars…We’ve actually just described the Santa Cruz neighbourhood, as we spent here most of Saturday and Sunday. Long time ago it was a Jewish medieval neighbourhood and nowadays it remains a labyrinth of narrow streets and an oasis during the hot Sevillan summer. No doubt about it, considering you can get 16 degrees on a mid February…imagine then the midsummer!
Needless to say people here are enjoying the sun out on the streets, on the bench, at the tables, with food, cervejas and sangrias, in a continuous celebration of the week-end – and they sure have all the city paved with places to celebrate whatever they feel like celebrating.
Visit Sevilla and have yourself some tapas and a cerveja. Que te aproveche!
