For the final segment of our two-week Andalucía tour, we visited another small mountain town before returning to the coast — this time to Cádiz on the Costa de Luz — and finally wrapped up our trip in famed Seville.

Arcos de la Frontera

Arcos is beautiful, and does attract a few tourists, but it’s not exactly on the beaten track. We stopped here mainly because we had a free place to stay, but the two days we spent here were perfect for resting, recharging, and taking it easy while exploring the quieter side of Andalucía.

We took advantage of having a comfortable home to ourselves (we’d done an apartment swap, exchanging a stay here for a stay at our place in Madrid) to cook, do laundry, reorganize our luggage, catch up on TV shows, and generally indulge in laziness. Our visit fell over New Year’s Eve, but unlike the debaucherous event the holiday represents in America, in Spain it’s generally a quiet, stay-at-home affair.

Our second day in Arcos, on New Year’s Day, we went out for a nice long walk around town. On our way to watch the sunset from a mirador, we came across a guy with a little wooden stand full of giant birds. Fluffy owls of all shapes and sizes, fierce-looking falcons, stoic ravens, and a brightly colored parrot all perched together. Curious about what was going on, I timidly approached. Within seconds, and without a word of English being spoken, the guy slipped a giant leather glove over my fingers and shoved two owls into my hands.

Uhhh, okay! The experience definitely set the tone for what I hoped would be a new year full of fun and unexpected anecdotes like this one.

We followed it up with another exceptionally beautiful sunset and a few hours of exploring Arcos’ typically Andalucían white-painted buildings, crazy hills, and spectacular views.

After a few days lying low in Arcos, it was time to party it up in…
Cádiz

At least, that was our attitude. To our slight dismay, post-New Year Cádiz was quite low-key, sleepy under a blanket of damp fog during most of our visit. Our time there was marked much more by learning the city’s history and the simple pleasure of being by the sea than it was by the wild nightlife we were expecting.

Spoiler: we returned to Cádiz for Carnaval in February and got our fill of the party scene after all.

During the brief periods of sunlight, we enjoyed walking around and experiencing the city’s old, stately beauty. The Plaza de San Juan de Dios features beautiful palm trees, fountains and wavy mosaic pavement that reminded me a lot of Lisbon.

The walkway and bike path that follows Avenida Campo del Sur offers views of some of Cádiz’s most beautiful buildings and hugs the most popular area of the old city, Barrio del Vina. We actually learned that certain parts of this area of Cádiz so closely resemble Cuba that the city has actually been used as a stand-in for Havana in several films, including the James Bond movie Die Another Day.

You can turn off the road onto a walkway leading straight out to sea to check out the Castillo de San Sebastian, a fortress located on a small island just off the coast. The castle itself isn’t much to see, but it is fun to walk around. The contrast of the brown sandstone walls and the ocean’s light, almost luminescent blue-green shade makes for gorgeous views.

The islet supposedly was once home to a Phoenician temple of Kronos. Nothing remains of it today, but Cádiz does have plenty of hidden gems spanning across its massive history, including periods of Phoenician, Roman, Moorish and Catholic rule.

One of the most notable landmarks is the Cádiz Cathedral, built on the site of an old mosque. Its construction was half-completed during the Baroque era, until money ran out and the project was stalled for a while. It was finally finished during the Neoclassical period — hence the change in color halfway up and a difference in stylistic elements from top to bottom.

Another thing we learned about Cádiz, the hard way: don’t eat the fucking seafood 😦

All over the Barrio del Viña, a seaside neighborhood packed with trendy restaurants, there are guys selling fresh oysters, shrimp, snails and other bits of seafood on the street.

Despite even being warned not to eat it by a native Gaditano we’d met earlier on our trip, I couldn’t resist the chance to try some fresh-as-it-gets (so I thought) shellfish. Haider and I downed two fresh oysters for a euro. A decision which went on to ruin most of my time in…

 

Seville

We bookended our trip with Andalucía’s two most exciting, culturally rich cities: Granada and Seville. I’m doing Seville no justice at all by not giving it its own post as I did Granada, but I spent about 1/3 of our visit hugging a toilet due to that one ill-advised oyster, so try as I might, I can’t muster up a ton of enthusiasm about our time there.

Which is a damn shame, because Seville is absolutely gorgeous.

Everywhere you look in Seville’s historic city center, there’s a lush garden, an ornate statue, beautiful tile work or elegant architecture.

The Seville Cathedral was the most stunning I’d seen the whole trip. Even though I’d sworn off cathedrals several cities ago, I was dying to go inside; sadly we couldn’t spare the time or money.

It’s the world’s largest Gothic cathedral and was built with pure opulence in mind, envisioned as a monument to the sheer wealth and power of Seville.

Like so many holy and important religious buildings in the lands once controlled by the Moors, the Seville Cathedral incorporates Muslim architecture — the bell tower, La Giralda, was once a minaret built to mimic the famous Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakech.

Near the cathedral, we got to see the Water Gardens of Dorne in real life, aka the Alcázar.

Our third major Moorish work of architecture, we may easily have ended up skipping the Alcázar, were we not big Game of Thrones nerds who couldn’t pass up the chance to see such a distinctive filming location.

Scenes from Game of Thrones season 5 filmed in the Alcázar.

I’m glad we didn’t miss it. Influenced by several different periods of history, it had an impressively diverse appearance and unique beauty. Its existence began as a Roman fort until it was turned into a Moorish fortified palace; after the Catholics conquered Seville, it was remodeled and extended. The Kings who did most of the work on it, Alfonso and Peter, respected the Islamic style, and preserved much of the building’s original appearance. The mix of the two styles made it a really cool way to wrap up a long trip filled with plenty of the two cultural influences, often intersecting but rarely blending so seamlessly.

The highlight of the Alcázar was its spectacular, sprawling gardens.

We were blessed with a frigid downpour on the day of our visit, but we explored them as much as we could. The beauty of the gardens was well worth dealing with the nasty weather.

Another high point of our time in Seville was experiencing flamenco.

All around Spain, flamenco is used to lure tourists into vastly overspending for sub-par shows. Most of Seville’s flamenco joints charge a 20-euro cover and expect you to pay for expensive food and drinks, too. Luckily, we got a tip from a local about La Carbonería. Entrance is free as long as you purchase a drink, which are reasonably priced. Attracting a good mix of locals and tourists, it had a laid-back and authentic feel that impressed us.

I had an image in my mind about what flamenco would be like — lots of fluttery skirts and stomping — but I was definitely surprised by the show we witnessed. For one thing, the performer we saw was male, though he still exhibited all the flamboyance and passion that are associated with the style. Watching the spectacle felt raw and intimate. We were seated closely enough to watch the dancer’s sweat flying and see his chest heaving after a particularly intense number. The ambience added to the effect; like our experience with fado in Lisbon, absolute silence and respect was demanded from the audience. Unfortunately, photos and videos were prohibited as well (and anyone who broke the rule was subjected to great tutting from the guitar player).

The day after the flamenco show, we explored the gorgeous Plaza de España. While every major Spanish city has a Plaza de España, Seville’s is the most beautiful by far. Unsurprising, as just about everything in Seville is beautiful!

Spain doesn’t skimp on the aesthetics in general, but Seville seems to have been designed with an especially great attention to detail and ornamentation. Of course, as the home of Christopher Columbus and the recipient of unimaginable New World riches, this wealthy and powerful city certainly had a lot to show off about during its heyday.

Though most of Seville’s style clearly originated from around Columbus’s day, it features some interesting touches of modernity, too. The Metropol Parasol (also known as Las Setas, or The Mushrooms) is a massive abstract wooden structure that lends a surreal vibe to its surroundings in Plaza la Encarnación.

The multi-level structure houses the Antiquarium, a museum of Roman and Moorish remains found on the site, as well as terraces with panoramic views and a restaurant. Unfortunately we visited on the day of Los Reyes Magos (the Three Kings’ Day — like Christmas Part 2) and nothing was open.

**

The morning of our fourth day in Seville, we packed up our bags yet again and departed, but this time, our next destination was our home in Madrid. It felt incredibly good to be going back, mostly because we were out of money and dying to sleep in our own comfortable bed again. But all in all, we’d had a great adventure, and our trip left us full of a great appreciation for Andalucía’s complicated and fascinating history, its natural beauty and rich culture, and its place in the country of Spain at large.