From Adventures in Spain, Part IV
\nThe Seville Epic<\/p>\n
Friday 3\/25\/05<\/p>\n
During her stay in Seville, Ni\u00c3\u00b1a Katie learned the ins and outs of survival,
\nparticularly during Santa Semana, the Easter holidays when interminable, gaudy processions criss-cross the city, and gawking tourists crowd into the narrow streets to watch. And since Mamacita Beth, Hermana Kathy, and Papacita were coming to visit her there this was of high importance (to us, anyway). Katie’s landlady told her that it would be impossible for us to find a hotel inside Seville during Semana Santa, so, using local buses and taxis, Katie searched for a good place a few miles outside of town. After finding us a place, the Hostal Lepanto, she e-mailed us a picture of it, and we were satisfied that there’d be no problems.<\/p>\n
We spent our first day in Seville gawking like tourists, and sampling the
\nlocal cuisine. After mucho gawking, it was starting to get dark, and we had to find the hostal where Ni\u00c3\u00b1a had reserved our rooms. The hostal was located out in the suburbs in the town of Mereina. Since Ni\u00c3\u00b1a Katie had gone out there by bus and taxi, she only knew the approximate direction. So blindly we drove out that way from Seville Centro, but rapidly found that there were no signs for Mereina, and it wasn’t on our maps. So we drove back to the main bus station in Seville, and Katie asked the agents there how to get to Mereina. The agents were pretty oblivious about the locations of the towns they serviced. We got a slightly better fix on the direction, but nothing specific about road names or landmarks. They gave us a small palm-sized area map showing all of the Seville area. Mareina was on it, but there was no way we could learn how to get there from Seville.<\/p>\n
And so adventure #4 began. We called the Hostal Lepanto. The landlady
\ncouldn’t tell Katie how to get there from Seville, but if we could somehow get to the village of San Juan, she could direct us from there. We stopped for directions to San Juan at a gasolino, and “Si”, as Ni\u00c3\u00b1a questioned him, indeed he knew where San Juan and Mereina were, and he described the route, which was something like:<\/p>\n
“Valaproximarondodirechavarondoizquerdorondadirechodirecharondorondokilo
\nmetrosrondodirechoizquerdorondovadirechocruzcampodirechoizquerdadirech
\nodirecha”<\/p>\n
On we went, still blindly, into the suburbs until the directions petered out.
\nWe asked at another gasolino and got another permutation of the directions.<\/p>\n
After another few rondos, the territory no longer matched the description so we stopped at a police station, and got some pretty explicit directions, but must have missed something crucial, like the “Cruz Campo” sign they told us to turn at. (Cruz Campo is a popular beer, and its billboards are everywhere.) We asked taxi drivers, more police, got more directions.<\/p>\n
“Izquerdorondadirechokilometrosrondodirechoizquerdorondovadirechocruz
\ncampodirechoi zquerdaproximarondodirechavarondo”<\/p>\n
The directions seemed to be getting shorter, so maybe we were making progress, maybe not. We considered putting Ni\u00c3\u00b1a Katie in a taxi and following her to the hostal. But, mirablile dicto, we suddenly found the Hostal Lepanto, only about 3 hours after we had started.<\/p>\n
Inside, the Hostal had some nice features, like many blue and white porcelain tiles, but there were a few problems–tricky door latches and weird room geometries, but the plumbing worked, hurray, hurray.<\/p>\n
The plan now was to take Ni\u00c3\u00b1a back to her apartment in Seville, and return to Lepanto. This is where adventure #5 began. We left our bags in the rooms, and headed back towards Seville. This was remarkably easy, since all the signs pointed there. Carefully, we watched all the landmarks and signs so we would be able to re-trace our route back to Lepanto, but that was impossible with all the one-way streets. Amazingly, getting back to Seville, only about 20 minutes away, turned out to be a piece of cake. We wrote notes all the way into town describing the buildings and roads. But we saw not a single landmark that was familiar from the 3-hour trip in the outward direction to Hostal Lepanto. It was as if we were in the Spanish Twilight Zone.<\/p>\n
Papacita soon expressed what was going on in Mamacita’s and Hermana’s minds, “Would we be able to get back to the Hostal without Ni\u00c3\u00b1a and her espa\u00c3\u00b1ol?” By the time we reached Seville centro, we were agreed, there was no way we’d be able to find the Hostal again without asking directions and, more important,
\nunderstanding the answers.<\/p>\n
So we turned around on the fringes of Seville, adopting Plan B, that
\nNi\u00c3\u00b1a would stay with us that night, and we tried to find Mariena
\nagain. We repeated the comedy of asking at gasolinos, taxi stops and
\npolice stations, and getting long-winded answers:<\/p>\n
“Direcha va rondo Vala
\nProxima rondo izquerdo
\nRonda direcho kilometros rondo
\nDirecho izquerdo direcha
\nRondo!
\nRondo!
\nRondo!
\nVa direcho cruz campo direcho Izquerda”<\/p>\n
Rossini could have scored our roundabout route using his music in The Barber of Seville. One of the policemen kindly gave us a suburban street map, but it was only of his little district, and didn’t extend to San Juan and Mariena. Nevertheless, stalwart Katie was getting better at asking questions, having the answers repeated, and taking notes.<\/p>\n
“Direcho izquerdo direcha
\nDirecha va rondo
\nVala proxima rondo izquerdo
\nRonda direcho kilometros rondo
\nDirecho!
\nDirecho!
\nVa direcho cruz campo direcho Izquerda”<\/p>\n
This time it took only 2 hours. We saw nothing of our earlier route
\nthrough the Seville Zona del Twilito until the last few blocks.<\/p>\n
Our plan to stay two nights at Lepanto changed then and there.
\nTomorrow we would find a place in the well-mapped Seville Centro or
\nsleep in the car. That resolve stiffened when we found that our
\naccommodations had no hot water, lights that went out by themselves,
\nand a doorway that required the skills of a locksmith and the agility
\nof a circus performer to enter. To open our door, we had to go down
\nto the lobby and ask for help on the magic twist of the wrist required
\nto open the lock. Even a maid was helpless at unlocking their door. And
\nto get into the room with luggage, you had to push the door against
\nthe bed, sit down on it, lift your bag onto the bed, swing your feet
\naround the door, then push the door shut, so the next person coming in
\ncould repeat the procedure. Going out, one performed the feat in reverse.<\/p>\n
3\/26\/05 Saturday<\/p>\n
So much for old Hostal Lepanto. It had beautiful tile hallways, and
\nit seemed to be very popular–all the rooms were taken–but it wasn’t
\none of those multi-star places. Not worth even half a star. Maybe
\na negative star. During breakfast the next morning, making calls on
\nNi\u00c3\u00b1a KT’s cell phone, contrary to the expectations of her Senora, we found
\na “Hotel Madrid” in Seville Centro. Twenty minutes later, following
\nall the signs pointing to Seville, we were in the Centro.<\/p>\n
Hotel Madrid was clean, quiet and comfortable. The doors unlocked,
\nthe water was hot and the lights went on and off at the switches.
\nNi\u00c3\u00b1a took a taxi back to her apartment, and we had a great sleep.<\/p>\n
We highly recommend Hotel Madrid. But if you elect to go to Hostal Lepanto or to any zero-star hotel in a suburb of Seville, bring a GPS!<\/p>\n
–rakkity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Adventures in Spain, Part IV The Seville Epic Friday 3\/25\/05 During her stay in Seville, Ni\u00c3\u00b1a Katie learned the ins and outs of survival, particularly during Santa Semana, the Easter holidays when interminable, gaudy processions criss-cross the city, and … Continue reading