“I left the UK bound for Seville to stay with my daughter for a month, she teaches English and lives there. Seville is a beautiful place with a mix of very traditional buildings and modern day chain stores and fooderies. It is a bustling city with plenty to see and one of the first buildings I went to see was the Cathedral. A spectacular building that you can look around, on the day we went there was a very long queue as it is a very popular tourist attraction. Next to this is the Archive building which looks almost as grand as the Cathedral and contains some of the documents belonging to Christopher Columbus – he is buried in the Cathedral.
Seville itself has everything you need in terms of clothes, food, supermarkets and an art gallery right in the centre. There are also 2 fabulous vegan places to eat. One called Organics, a cafe serves light meals and drinks including wine which are all organic, the prices are not too bad and I had some lovely food in there including afternoon coffee and cake – and they have a good selection of vegan cakes.
The sister restaurant called Gaia just outside of the centre but walkable serves lunches and dinners and this would be the place for evening meals and lunchtime food if you want something more substantial.
A couple of doors away Gaia has a small supermarket selling all healthy products from vegan chocolate to vegan washing liquid.
I really enjoyed the beautiful sights like La Seta (translation mushroom, a building designed for shade and for people to meet) where you can walk up to the top floors and overlook the city. Fabulous views from a very modern building but liked by tourists, students and locals. The centre has a lovely vibe to it and will be enjoyed by anyone who has history, architectural and traditional interests. This will be the place for it and still have all the shops to look around.
Most days I visited the shopping area in my daughters neighbourhood that has all the traditional shops and stalls selling fresh fruit and vegetables so we had many delicious home cooked vegan meals.
We also travelled to Cadiz and stayed at a campsite just outside called Playa Las Dunas de San Anton in Puerto De Santa Maria. From here we got on the ferry to Cadiz itself, after 3 days we travelled to the next campsite at the hilltop town of Vejer de la Frontera but when we parked up found that we had a puncture and had to call out the AA!
The campsite was set in a national park with beautiful walks and scenery. It also had a shop on site that sold a really good range of vegan foods – I was amazed.
We drove to Granada, a bit more busy here with the beautiful presence of most places in Spain a Cathedral. These religious buildings are present in just about every place we went to but they have to be seen for their beauty and outstanding architecture. We walked through the town and up to the Mirador de San Nicolas and I can’t convey here the stunning views this offers over Granada and even more stunning the view of Alhambra and Sierra Nevada. This was a really special visit and while we were there it rained for about 10 mins and then I got pictures of a double rainbow over the whole view.
I really enjoyed this trip and have some fantastic memories. From a vegan point of view some places were really good at providing appropriate food but others not so. However, we were in a very good position of having a camper van and did all our own cooking. When we did eat out we managed to get what we needed. Also, if you like coffee there is some very good ones on offer. The temperature as an average was about 30-35 degrees with the occasional day of rain at the beginning. Mainland Spain is so much more than the holiday destinations of the beaches so frequently visited by tourists. It is a beautiful country with lots to offer in terms of scenery, culture, history and beauty oh, and the people are pretty nice too.”
