We arrived in Seville with a plan.
That was the first mistake.
The plan was simple. Park the van somewhere sensible, walk into the centre, see one or two famous things, and then move on the next day before the heat turned the streets into a frying pan.
By about eleven in the morning the plan had collapsed.
Partly because Seville does that to you. But mostly because we sat down for coffee and never really got going again.
This city moves at its own speed.
A few days earlier we had been wandering through quiet ham country and hill towns, a landscape that felt about as far from city life as you can get. That strange detour through cork forests and jamón shops still feels like another world.
If you missed that stop, it was here:
https://campespana.com/dehesa-miles-jamon-slices-and-a-cool-hill-town/
Seville is the opposite.
Noise, colour, horses clopping past carriages, orange trees lining streets that seem permanently sun-soaked. You turn a corner and suddenly there’s another plaza full of people drinking small beers and talking like they’ve known each other for fifty years.
Mary looked around the square and said something fairly accurate.
“This is not a one-coffee city.”
She was right.
The first café turned into the second café which turned into sitting on a bench watching a man attempt to parallel park a van roughly the size of a small house.
After about fifteen attempts he got out, looked at the space, and walked away.
Mary nodded approvingly.
“Correct decision.”
We eventually wandered toward the cathedral, mostly because you can’t really avoid it. It rises up out of the streets like someone dropped a mountain into the middle of the city.
You start walking toward something else and somehow end up back there again.
The heat by midday was doing that slow Spanish thing where it creeps up on you rather than slapping you immediately. By the time we realised we were roasting it was already too late.
“Lunch,” Mary said.
“Already?”
“Yes. That’s how cities work.”
We found a small bar tucked down one of the narrow streets where the shade actually felt cool rather than theoretical. Inside, three old men were watching a football replay with the concentration of surgeons.
The barman brought two beers without asking many questions.
I asked for something small to eat.
Ten minutes later a plate of jamón appeared that looked suspiciously familiar.
Mary raised an eyebrow.
“Again?”
“I didn’t order it.”
“You absolutely ordered it.”
Fair point.
We sat there for a while listening to the low hum of conversation and the occasional shout from the television. Seville outside was still blazing away, but inside everything felt calm and slightly slow.
Eventually Mary said something that sums up travelling in this van.
“We’re not going to see half the things people say you should see here, are we?”
“Probably not.”
“And you’re fine with that?”
“Completely.”
Because sometimes a place isn’t about ticking off monuments.
Sometimes it’s just sitting in a shaded bar in the middle of Seville eating jamón again and wondering how we keep ending up doing exactly the same thing in completely different towns.
The van was still parked somewhere on the edge of the city when we finally wandered back in the late afternoon.
Dusty again.
Which probably means we’re about to leave soon.
Or at least that’s the plan.
And if the last few weeks have taught us anything, it’s that our plans usually last about three hours.
