Another fabulous Sunday walk. 🙂

This time we went to Heliopolis, which is a neighbourhood that was created for official visitors to the 1929 Iberoamericana Expo. It was meant to be temporary … quite amazing when you see how lovely the houses are. Apparently most of them have had to be pretty much rebuilt but it’s one of the few places in Sevilla that has individual homes with gardens, and a lot of the houses are quite spectacular.

At the start of our walk we ran into our musician friend Juan and I was shocked to see that he had cut off his gorgeous waist-length hair! Then we took the bus out to Heliopolis as it’s about an hour’s walk away. After wandering around there for awhile (Nog had never been to Heliopolis before) we walked home, stopping in Maria Luisa park for a much needed cold beer … and we met a lovely guy from Senegal playing a very strange instrument carved out of a pumpkin.

You can have a look at what we saw over here …

Sunday walk in Heliopolis

It was fantastic!

And we almost didn’t go! But then after having coffee in bed we decided to go out for brekky at our favourite breakfast bar and our plan was to go for a walk along the river. But we ran into our friend José Miguel there and he mentioned the Rastro (Sunday market) and so we decided to go there instead.

I’d never been to that particular Rastro before but was not surprised to see that it was just as pathetic and junky as all the other ones I’ve been to here. We weren’t exactly sure of its location so ended up going the long way round, crossing fields and passing under bridges … but we got there eventually. Came across a gypsy camp under one of the bridges and I really wanted to take some photos but we decided that a) it would be intrusive and b) we didn’t want to ‘lose’ our camera.

What a shame because it was just like a scene out of a film with the tents and the campfire going, women in long skirts, kids everywhere. But later on we came across a group of gypsy women just outside the Rastro and I got a photo of them. Also took a couple of the Rastro just to show how totally cheesy it was. On the way back we decided to stop at the ‘abba hotel’ (yes, that’s its name) because we wanted to check out its rooftop terrace and have a cold beer there. But although the terrace and sundeck was open the bar wasn’t, so we made our way through Triana until we found a nice place on the riverbank that served the frostiest ice-cold beer ever – well worth the wait.

By then (about 1.30pm) we were getting peckish so we stopped for a couple of tapas at one of my favourite places in Triana, called La Primera del Puente. Nog had never been there before (though I believe Teuchter and Mr T found their way there one day during their visit last spring) and he loved it.

And now we are home again, feeling very ‘happy tired’ after having been out for about four hours, most of that time walking. It was a splendid morning with clear blue sunny skies and a perfect temperature for walking (and sitting outside drinking cold beer).

You can see for yourself 🙂

Sunday walk