Today was genuinely a day of firsts as we crossed the river and headed to the Triana area of Seville. We’d been attracted by a couple of things – the first was what was billed as a ‘flea market’ turned out to be one of those little local markets selling fresh meat, fish and vegetables that the UK lost so long ago and that second that Triana is the place where all the wonderful ceramics were made.
There is a small museum, the Triana Ceramic Center, which is oddly tucked away in a corner without much in the way of signage. This is built upon an old ceramics works and has the most amazing frontage made out of old ceramic pipes. Unfortunately, the part that might have been the most interesting showing previous pieces of work was shut.
We then walked out of the centre of the area to the business district which has several interesting buildings including the Schindler Tower, an observation tower you reach via, you’ve guessed it – a Schindler lift, The Sevilla Tower, and Torre Triana, an administrative building of the Government of Andalusia. All of which you can see in the pictures below.
There is also a theme park a little further on but that was not for us so we headed back to the tourist centre of town.
On Your Bike
When we first visited Seville we used Lime eScooters to get from the hotel to the centre of town. Sadly, those aren’t around any more but in their place are Lime eBikes which we put to good use today. Initially, we were just going to use them to get us from town back to the hotel but, as it was still early we decided to visit somewhere we’d seen from the taxi yesterday.
We rode to the Macarena district making our way first to the Macarena gate and the Basílica de la Macarena, a pretty yellow-painted church. More interesting were the largest surviving stretch of city walls which seemed to be under repair so we couldn’t actually go onto them.
Cycling back made me appreciate just how well set up Seville is for bikes. The wide streets lend themselves to cycle lanes and consequently, there are a lot of them. You can easily get from one end of the city to another on a dedicated cycle lane that is separated from the main carriageway. There is also a route that runs right along the banks of the river although this has the addition of more mobile hazards such as the small puppy that Helen nearly flattened. To be fair it was on the cycle lane and its owner wasn’t paying much attention and that would have been my defense!
And that’s it for another trip to Seville. It is a beautiful place and lovely to visit at this time of the year when the sun is shining and it is cold and wet back home. I do not doubt that we will be back again.
