5-Day Trip to Seville & Coimbra – Part 2

Part 2, part 1 can be found here.

Wednesday Sep 29. Seville pre-gig day
We met around 9:00 in Los Columnas, had a quick Cafe Con Leche (coffee with milk) and headed off for a walk, eventually settling for a Cafe not far away. Inside was heaving with locals, so we joined in the mayhem. It took almost 20 minutes to get served, during which time the guy making the coffees was having several, highly vocal altercations with the guy taking the orders. It was an amusing start to the day. The freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee, bread and ham was perfect.


Next up was the hop on and off Seville bus tour which passed my favourite bridge. Of course there was always a plan, and that was to hop off at the nearest stop to the Olympic stadium and check out the venue. The general strike which was in full swing in Spain, thankfully it did not affect the bus tour. As we made our way to the start of the bus tour, we passed several protesters who were getting ready for marches, etc.

Close to where the Expo 92 area has laid almost dormant for nearly 20 years, we got off and strolled down to the venue. There were around 60 people already in the queue.

A quick survey indicated the lining up system was good, and was under the shade of trees. Temporary toilets were also in place. We asked the nearby security guard to see if we could get inside the stadium, but no dice. We walked up by the stadium itself, asked a few more times could we get inside, but no way. One of us spotted a policeman and showed him let’s just say, an ID badge from work and he almost instantly brought us up in the lift to the fourth floor. From there we could see inside the stadium, but it was a somewhat restricted view on the setup.

Our English friends had not finished there however. As we walked away from the stadium we noticed there was a hotel directly attached to the actual stadium. “Surely” Steve said, “we should be able to get a better view from the hotel.” Sure enough, within minutes we got to the hotel restaurant which has a 20 metre window overlooking the whole stadium. We had coffee while we looked at the incredible setup. You can see what we saw from the restaurant here.

I also found this video which shows the view from one of the hotel bedrooms (Steve & Paul can be seen in the GA Q at 0:55). There is also footage in there of U2 360 Sevilla 2010 who have a facebook and webpage. They brought a giant poster of U2 dressed as matadors into the inner circle. I have photos of them in Part 3.

As we departed the stadium we noticed there was some wall climbing going on in a nearby underpass which was fairly incredible to see, and fairly dangerous also (see pictures).
We got back on the bus tour, which completed its journey after a while. On our way back we stopped off in another lovely Tapas bar, and had a few cold ones and some local snacks. At that stage it was back for a chill out at our quarters. I love city bus tours. First off in this heat, it would have been impossible to walk around what we saw on the tour. Second, you get to relax and get a flavor of the city. No, it’s not the city in full, but an all-around flavor of it.

Later, we finally met Alan and his sister Claire. Alan has been running a U2 360 tour Facebook page for a while now, along with some others in the U.S. These guys were on an U2 adventure way beyond what we were doing. They left Liverpool almost a week ago, drove to Portsmouth, got the ferry to Santander, and took in a few places across northern Spain, before going to the San Sebastian U2 gig. They then drove through central Spain, stopping off a few times en route to Seville. They were going to the last five gigs of the European tour. We had been in touch for a few months, and it was great to finally meet them. They too were meeting with other friends, and before the night was over we had amassed around 10 U2 fans, all going to the gig the following evening. We managed o squeeze in a proper meal in a local Chineese(of all places). We then started to head home and saw some Flamenco dancing in the square by the Cathedral.

It was agreed we would meet at 8:00 at Las Columnas, and have some breakfast, and head to the supermarket before going and joining the GA Q. A local told us the supermarkets don’t open until 9:00. Strange but true.

Some photos from this day can be seen here.

Part 3 is here.

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