It wasn't very hot today, so Marco and I decided to explore the Maria Luisa Gardens in the south of the city. It's a huge park and we were told that it could easily take up an afternoon to fully explore it so to go either on a full stomach, or to prepare some food to picnic.
Never to lose an opportunity for a picnic, we first made a stop at the underground market (the one with the honeycomb roof that I put up photos of on the first day). This time, I noticed that our Spanish had improved much more than our first visit, which resulted in our coming away with lots more food than last time. :D
We took the tram to the last stop, and found the Plaza de Espana. I hadn't looked into what that was at all and was totally surprised to see gorgeous, ornately decorated buildings framed by a lovely little moat that ran all around, allowing visitors to rent boats and paddle under cute bridges and around the plaza. It very much had a Venetian meets Spain feel to it. Marco explained to me that the entire thing was built to house the World Expo when it took place in Seville. That's why it was called the Pl. de Espana. 
Maria Luisa park was beautiful as well - manicured lawns hiding gems of little ponds, museums, and ancient trees. I especially loved the pond beside which we chose to picnic. There was a large trellis overhead, providing shade for the benches, with fragrant, trailing lavender blossoms hanging down like a curtain. Two turtle doves actually cuddled and groomed each other in a nearby tree, and all the ducks in the pond swam by in pairs. Obviously when people said that Seville is saturated with romance and couples they were not exaggerating!! I wonder what people passing by thought of Marco and I -- we were engaged in a grape-seed spitting contest with much gusto! |
| We rented one of these to ride around the park, and got into a race with a Spanish couple! |
Your pictures are gorgeous! So jealous.
ReplyDeleteAww thanks for reading!! :)
ReplyDelete