The Streets of Seville

On our trips here in Spain, I have walked many narrow and winding streets in the cities we’ve visited.  Always surprised when a car would come zipping through while we stood with the kids plastered to the nearest wall to allow the car room to pass.  The streets really seem like sidewalks and in the absence of sidewalks you are prone to walk right down the center of them (usually with a crowd around you) or walk right out into them without a second thought.  Lavender nearly got hit by a car when we visited Toledo.  She was trying to balance on a thick-chain link fence as her sisters were doing but she lost her balance and tripped into the road at the same time a small car came zipping though then swerved, slammed on its brakes and the driver began yelling in Spanish at us.  We were all upset, rightfully so.  The streets in the old parts of many cities are small.  Many American cars simply wouldn’t fit.

Buitrago has some smaller streets that when I first started renting cars here, I planned where I parked to that I could strategically avoid the narrowest streets.  HA!  I booked our hostel in Seville which the knowledge that there was parking on site (for a reasonable fee compared to others) and that it was within close walking distance to many places of interest.  That’s all I knew.  Had I known more, I would not have booked this hostel.  But had I known more, I would have missed out on a great adventure and some excellent bragging rights.

We had to be admitted to drive in old town by the traffic cop.

Then the street got a little smaller while the GPS tried to keep up.

The GPS then told me to turn here. Hmmm….really??

And make this turn. At this point I’m picturing us getting stuck, literally.

I’m pretty sure this lady stopped to watch me. And while I made it out of here fine, I did go down the one-way street right after this. The one that the red circle is telling me not to.

This is the hostel there on the left. The door to the place opened inward.

This is the parking garage. Back where October is where the hostel staff move the cars to. I never could have made it back there.

Another shot of the garage. We parked right in the door and then the hostel staff ask for your car keys (my rental car keys!!) so they can move the cars around in the garage. We did end up with some small scratches and green paint. We buffed it out and us a cover-up pen before returning the car.

Here’s the street we just drove down! The one with the lady watching! Craziness!