A Donut Day!

Just a short post today because we had a fairly quiet day. We planned to cycle out to the Plaza de Espana today and along the way stop at a laundrette to do some washing. On the way there, we stopped off at a little vegan bakery that I’d read about, to have a quick elevenses. Oh my! I couldn’t believe what was on offer and all vegan, I was spoiled for choice for sure! I just never eat those sorts of things so it was a complete treat and I was in heaven. I finally decided on a donut and it was sensational! Steve had a big chocolate pastry thing, which looked pretty good too. When I left, I told the woman who runs the place (it’s called Veganitessan) that we didn’t have anything like this where I was from and it was the absolute perfect treat and her baking was superb. She laughed and said thank you. She is one magical baker with what she creates without animal products. Even the table we sat at asked people to stay animal free if they used the tables. Oh, and I took a couple of extra treats away with me for later too! I won’t get this chance again!

So now, fully fuelled with our weekly quota of fat and sugar, we headed for the laundrette. This is where we ended up spending the bulk of the day I think. It was busy, so we had to sit and hold our place in line for a machine, then wait while everything washed and dried. While we were waiting we got chatting to a woman from the UK. She said she sold up everything and bought a motorhome and now spends six months of the year in her motorhome travelling around Spain to escape the British winter. Then she goes back home to earn some money and then she’s off again. It didn’t sound like a bad life at all!

We finally headed for the Plaza de Espana and it’s hard to describe this place. Stunning. Beautiful. Breathtaking. Impressive. I can’t choose a superlative. It was just the most beautiful, sweeping, curved, grand building, set in the park like grounds of the Parque de Maria Luisa. It was built for the World’s Fair in 1929 and it is a beautiful place. The day and the surroundings just looked picture-postcard perfect! We sat and had lunch then walked around in the Seville sunshine, looking at the building and its tiled murals. As we sat and roamed we were talking about some of the things that are done in Europe that we could learn from. Steve’s decided he really likes the concept of siesta and stopping work for 3 hours every afternoon. He reckons that’s a goer. So look out in a future council election – Steve’s going to run on a platform of introducing a daily siesta and I’m running on a platform of making more bike paths and creating pretty tiled footpaths. So vote for us and you’ll have a three hour break each day where you can go for a leisurely stroll along a beautiful cobbled path or a bike ride along a designated bike path where you can nod and wave and say g’day to passing cyclists. Vote 1 for that joint ticket!

 

 

The day finished with a run. I was supposed to run a marathon here and ended up not being able to, so I couldn’t leave Seville without running here. So we went down to the path alongside the river and I did a nice easy 5km. There are a lot of runners here and I’ve decided they all must have very strong ankles to run on all those cobbles. I stopped and walked in places so as to avoid a face plant on the lumpy cobbled paving, but others kept on running. Good on ‘em, they are braver than I!

So that was our day. Fairly quiet with a bit of site seeing and a bit of housekeeping. We’ve actually decided to stay one more day in Seville, while we get our plans sorted for where we’re heading next. I’ll make sure I stay away from vegan bakeries though, or no amount of cycling will shift the rapidly growing self-padded cycling rear end that I’ll be developing thanks to those tasty temptations! I won’t forget my donut day in a hurry though. It’s a sugar coated memory!