The center of Seville in Spain is one of the typically great European urban neighborhoods
with a mix of residential and shopping, pedestrian lanes, neighborhood plazas, just a real people-friendly
place.
We are going to take you through it with several walks, pointing out some of the major plazas
and the lovely pedestrian lanes.
Starting out at Plaza Nueva, the most popular place in town.
This central area with the plaza and the streets leading to it is really the heart and the
focal point of the city.
Notice the broad street that is for pedestrians, bicycles, no cars allowed, and the tram.
Seville has a recently installed modern tram system that really is a great way to move
people around.
It so easy for the tram to come right through the center of town this way.
It's not disrupting the urban fabric in any way.
It comes along nice and slowly in the central area with pedestrians and bicyclists sharing
the space, and then it moves faster when it's out on the edge of town bringing people to
the suburbs and points beyond.
Much less expensive than constructing a subway and much less disruptive than building an
elevated train through the center of town.
The street-level tram is an ideal example of urban transportation at its best, very
easy to get on the tram, it's like getting on a bus.
It's right at street level.
This neighborhood along Constitution Avenue has been entirely transformed by the tram
service because now there are no cars going by, you don't have those exhaust fumes and
noise, and so there's a lot more room for people throughout.
You have got the sidewalk restaurants, you have got people walking, strolling along,
lounging, people-watching, and the street is a major one that connects the cathedral
with the City Hall Square, and then beyond, right into the pedestrian shopping zone where
we will be taking you next.
Plaza Nueva is just one block over from the main pedestrian street of town which leads
right into the shopping district -- Calle Sierpes, lined with the best shopping and
liveliest atmosphere, especially in the late afternoon when the locals are out enjoying
their traditional stroll.
Sierpes means Street of the Serpent perhaps due to its wiggly route and extreme length.
It goes for nearly a mile and it's not just the one street it's an entire shopping zone,
a fabric of side lanes and parallel streets that make for the most important shopping
area of the city.
There are a lot of beautiful old buildings here with tiles on the walls in that typical
Andalusion style, so you want to be sure to look up a couple of floors to see the roof
lines and the tiles up above and windows and balconies, maybe some flowerpots as you're
walking along on these main shopping streets.
the shops are open in the morning from 10 till 2 PM and the they close for siesta in
that typical Spanish-style and reopen again at 3 PM and stay open usually till 10 PM.
Anchoring the north end of this retail network at Plaza Duque de la Victoria is the city's
largest department store, El Corte Ingles, open throughout the afternoon.
No siesta for the department stores.
Occupying a city block with a beautiful plaza and fountain out front, they claim to have
a half-million items for sale.
Of course the advantage of that department store is that you can find everything under
the one roof -- walk in the one door and you're bound to find almost everything for sale in
the city, although it's kind of more fun to poke around in the little boutiques along
the shopping lanes.
Like many other European cities lately, Seville has been converting more and more of its downtown
streets into pedestrian malls.
Ironically, shop merchants throughout Europe resisted this kind of transformation from
automobile access to pedestrian zone thinking that it would kill their business, because
everybody was driving up to the shop, but they quickly realized that it was great for
business -- many, many more people can walk by the shop than could ever dry by previously,
so it's been a big victory all around.
The public especially has benefited from this new quality of urban life.
This central zone is a big, automobile-free shopping mall and will be the most important
part of town for many visitors.
Two parallel shopping streets of Cuna and Tetuan flank Sierpes, connected by a pedestrian
network of little side streets with no automobiles allowed.
It's a good thing that these two parallel lanes and other cross lanes have developed
because otherwise Sierpes would just be too crowded.
As it is on a busy day you will be rubbing shoulders with quite a few locals -- and it
gets most busy on the weekends, Friday, Saturday after 5 PM.
That's really when it's out in all its glory.
Typical of most European cities, there are not many big shopping malls out on the outskirts
in the suburbs of the city, and therefore the central part of Seville here in the pedestrian
zone is still the main place where people gather for shopping, eating, people-watching
and just taking a walk.
The city has put fabric canopies over many of these pedestrian lanes to shelter people
from the sun.
It does get kind of hot from May through September, but the canopies San Eloy is another one of
those pedestrian shopping streets that's perpendicular to Sierpes -- a great neighborhood, and there
are some little garden plazas that you can sit down and take a break at.
Here's an example of one of the finest things in life, standing around with your friends
having a drink, having a conversation in a beautiful outdoor plaza -- Plaza del Salvador.
And we will come back here in a little while in the evening to show you when it is really
jumping.
Notice they has standup tables that encourage energetic conversation and mingling with your
friends.
And now we are just going to wander little bit, just kind of meander around, take a left,
take a right, go down some attractive alleys and we soon find ourselves at a magical little
spot.
Plaza San Lorenzo: This plaza is not really on any guidebooks as an important destination
site that you must see, but it is just such a wonderful slice of life of Seville that
we're going to spend some time here hanging out, especially now late in the afternoon
-- it's about 5 o'clock going on 6 o'clock, it's twilight time and the locals are out
in force.
This is an outdoor living room.
You see the people are just sitting at the caf├⌐s, the kids are all around, playing
up a storm having a great time with each other.
There is a church on one side, there are caf├⌐s, pastry shops, restaurants and bars and snack
bars and convenience stores.
And then the apartments are all around within a few blocks.
This is one of the great joys of city life where you have that urban density where enough
people are living in a certain neighborhood that you can walk out, walk down to the corner
plaza, the neighborhood plaza, see your friends, spend some time, do a little shopping and
then walk back home again.
This is really strictly for the locals.
And of course throughout Seville you have a number of these neighborhood centers, these
little plazas.
This is happening all over town.
In the Middle Ages, Plaza del Salvador had been the Muslim's major square with a big
mosque and the marketplace.
It was replaced by Seville's second-largest church, and what is today one of the liveliest
plazas in town, filled with young people in the evening having a great time.
This plaza is right next to the major university in Seville, and at night it really becomes
a lively social gathering area.
It's really all wonderful spot for the young people to get together -- they can stand up
and have a drink out in the public square, they can go into the restaurants and cafes
if they like, or just sit around the edges on the steps of the church and enjoy the scene.
It's like an ongoing party every night.
Europe really excels at these places for people to gather, public places in the middle of
town.
It's a very casual, safe and friendly environment, a great place to meet somebody, great place
to mingle.
There's really nothing much like it in most American cities, but this is something really
special to Europe and in particular to Spain, and right here in the heart of Seville . It's
really a marvelous scene and you're welcome to join in.
Many of the young people speak English pretty well and if you'd like to join a conversation,
well go right ahead and see you can contribute.
Everybody will be the better for it.
Even though it seems like Spaniards stay up all night -- they keep very late hours -- the
traveler has got to get some rest, and what better way to do that than in the fine hotel
like the Melia Gran Col├│n, a five-star property of that big Spanish chain Melia.
And they put on a typical large Spanish buffet breakfast, This is a great way to build up
some energy for another big day.
Breakfast is usually included with the price of your hotel room in Spain and generally
throughout Europe, so that's all very convenient -- you're go right downstairs, have breakfast,
go back up to your room get ready for the day.
And in our case were traveling with a small group so we have chance to talk a little and
swap some tales about what happened yesterday.
The hotel is nicely located in the center of the downtown commercial area just a few
blocks south of El Corte Ingles, the big department store, and it's in a charming little neighborhood.
There are narrow streets, there are sidewalk cafes nearby, and it puts us in good position
for starting another walking tour of Seville.
This morning we will take a stroll through more of the pedestrian shopping streets and
over to a big plaza, Alameda de Hercules, and then on to have a look at the old wall
that still surrounds part of the city.
Once again into the lovely pedestrian zone in central Seville.
This time along Amore de Dios, a narrow lane with shops that have a nice variety of goods.
And the street is really an extension of Sierpes, the main pedestrian lane that goes through
the heart of town.
This is a neighborhood that we're entering now that 20 years ago was really not such
a desirable part of town, but there's been a lot of efforts now to clean it up and make
it a very pedestrian-friendly region.
Walk a few blocks west to Alameda de Hercules, a narrow tree-shaded park that has recently
bounced back from being a seedy red-light district to becoming one of the trendy hot-spots
of town with ultra-hip boutiques and yuppie cafes.
You'll see families out here enjoying their time together in the open air, and notice
the landscaping and the paving, the lovely contours that they've put into the paved brick
plaza.
It really breaks up this major space and makes it a far more interesting experience.
You see there's just a narrow lane for automobiles to go through here, so there is some access
for motor vehicles but not much.
This is a place for people, for pedestrians, for bicycles.
Seville is a major bicycling town.
There are a large number of dedicated bikeways exclusive for the bicycles.
They also have one of these very popular bicycle rental systems that you're finding more and
more now throughout Europe.
It is a garden plaza that was built in 1574, which makes it, according to Wikipedia, the
oldest public garden in Spain and in Europe.
The beautiful plaza we see today has a very long history, starting out as a riverbed,
then swamp, then reclaimed as an upper-class gathering place, falling later into disrepute
as spot for drugs and whores, and now, reborn as one of the finest and safest friendly gathering
places in town.
Sometimes it would get so flooded that people crossed the square on boats back in the 16th
and 17th centuries.
And then public redevelopment funded by the city council totally renewed La Alameda between
2006 and 2008, so these improvements are quite new.
Road traffic was limited, and a number of kiosks, benches and fountains installed.
And now it's one of the main social gathering centers nightlife hot spots of the city.
Quite naturally there's been a positive spillover effect into the nearby blocks which have been
transformed into a very desirable place to live -- there are shops, neighborhood restaurants,
bars and cafes, and they're really taking very good care of these old buildings here.
The city is showing a lot of pride in the historic renovations that have been happening
throughout.
We've reached the west end of the old town and even here you'll find some more pedestrian
lanes.
And then there is a mix of traffic, there are some residential streets here with some
affordable apartments right within the old town.
It's a very desirable neighborhood in which to live.
You've got the urban conveniences and yet it's rather quiet an affordable.
And finally we reach the ancient wall and the Macarena Gate.
This is part of a fortification that at one time went around the entire old town.
The origins ultimately went back to Roman days and it was built up over the Gothic and
Islamic periods and Castilian and it survived right up through the 19th century with the
Macarena to Cordoba gate section beautifully restored.
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