Seville—the Setas reminded me of Tinker Toys or Legos—May 29-31, 2024

When the bus pulled into the Seville Plaza Armas bus station, I saw we were just about 15 minutes from the 007 room Salvador Hostel which was just around the corner from the artistic Plaza La Encarnación with its Setas de Sevilla structure.

In this old part of town, there were many walking streets where my hostel was.

When I was walking to the hostel, I noticed many people wearing the rock band AC/DC black T-shirts. As it turns out that night and the following night there was an AC/DC concert in the big stadium. 

I think this explains why I couldn’t find a hotel room under €275, and there were no available hostels shown on Hostelworld. I ended up getting this reservation by going to Booking.com, and paying  €92/night to stay there. Now the AC/DC concert is over, the rates are back to €30 per night.  

First it was Taylor Swift in Lisbon the same time I was there, and now it’s AC/DC in Seville. It’s a good thing I’ve already booked the rest of my accommodations until I leave on June 20th.

The 007 room Salvador Hostel was located along one of the walking streets in this beautiful building.

At least my room had only four beds – – two bunkbeds.  We had a bathroom in the unit. It was a very clean and comfortable place to stay and the public areas were comfortable as well. The motto on the hotel card, kind of sums up my belief too.

After checking in and unpacking my stuff, I went around the corner to the Plaza La Encarnación which had the Setas de Sevilla structure that was started in 2006 and finished in 2011over the old market place square that had fallen into disrepair and later a parking lot.

Beneath the structure, they had preserved some Roman ruins.

I entered the artistic wood structure and walked up to the top to get some views of the city from the Mirador at the top.

From the Mirador, I could see the Seville Cathedral, as well as the nearby university with its dome along with other churches in the surrounding area that stood apart from the red roof buildings that filled the skyline.

Here is what the site looked like in the 1960s.

It became a parking lot in the 1970s.

Construction began in June 2006 and finished in 2011.

This area under the structure now has several wine and tapas bars

After that visit, I stopped at a nearby restaurant and had a few tapas One was a crispy artichoke floating in a bit of tomato sauce and the other was a pork cheek smoky stew.

Here are some more tapas I had from another place: cheese covered eggplant, a breaded veal cutlet, and toast with bolognese sauce and cheese.

Apparently, a lot of people like these dried out hams. This ham is used in many of the tapas components. To me, it’s like chewing very salty beef jerky.

The following day I went to visit the Seville Cathedral, and because it was Sunday, the Christopher Columbus tomb area was closed, so I missed out on that. The cathedral was huge, and there seemed to be many different sections for worship along with many statues of religious figures.

After that, I went to see the Alcazar, but I was surprised to learn that you could only get in if you had reservations. The line for reservations for later times was extremely long so I didn’t bother, but I was able to take pictures of the outside courtyard along with the outside of walls of the Alcazar.

The courtyard and line for making reservations in the future to visit Alcazar.

I really enjoyed walking along these wide walking streets they were filled with shops, but because it was Sunday, many of them were closed.

In the evening, I went to a flamenco show near the hostel,  but they didn’t allow pictures until the very end. Both the singers and dancers were very forceful. It was in a small theater, so everyone had a very good view of the performance of the dancers, guitarist, and singers.

In reaction to the very high priced stay in Seville, largely because of the AC/DC concert, I made reservations at the remaining places I planned to visit. Who knows what performers are going to be at the next cities I visit?

Since I made a hotel reservations, I then made all my train reservations using my discount card, and I saved €113 for my train rides from Seville to Madrid for the next three weeks for a total rail cost of €203.

When I got to the station the following morning, it looked like my train was one of the faster ones.  I really love these train rides and wish that we had something similar in the US.

During the 3 1/2 hour ride, we mostly passed by fields filled with olive trees and sunflowers until we came to the mountains as we approached Malaga.  We then began to go through long stretches of tunnels.  I saw that one of our last stops was at the Caminito del Rey stop.

I had planned to return here to hike the Caminito del Rey hike since I had enjoyed doing that hike in 2019. Much of the trail was suspended over the steep cliffs. 

However, when I went online to buy the ticket for the following day for €10, I saw that there were no available reservations until the following week. It seems like it’s gotten very popular. I could have gone the following day with a tour group for the cost of €65-€200, but I decided to forgo this second experience along with its cost.  

Here are some of my pictures from my 2019 hike there. The first picture below shows remnants of the old trail beneath the new trail.

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