[13D10N - Incentive Trip: Spain & Portugal] 2D1N at Seville + Day Trip to Córdoba

We left our Granada hotel after staying for a night. We woke up early to have our breakfast at the hotel before checking out.

We packed our luggage and headed down to the lobby to join in the group gathering at 845am. We boarded our tour bus to Seville. It was about a 4.5hour journey from Granada. During our journey to Seville, we made a mid-way stop at Córdoba to visit the Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba (Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba). This was a welcome break after having been sitting in the tour bus for 2.5 hours!

The bus stopped at Puente Romano de Córdoba (Roman bridge of Córdoba). We took some beautiful photos.

We walked across the bridge to Córdoba Old Town. On the bridge was a statue of an angel with a halo above its head.

The Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba was originally a mosque, which was then later convent to a Catholic Church. The interior was amazing! The architecture of the building was in a ‘muslim style’ and yet there are many displays related to ‘catholic’ stuffs. No wonder this place was called Mezquita-Catedral, a mosque and yet a cathedral.

The Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba remains one of its most iconic landmarks that attracts many visitors from all over the world.

After touring the Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba, we went to explore the old town. It was a clean and quaint town with many cafes and restaurants. The tour leader gathered all of us at Restaurante La Esquinita de la Judería El Patio for lunch. This was another self-paid lunch.

We ordered Salmorejo from Córdoba which is a thicker version of Gazpacho that is often served with pieces of Ibérico ham on the top. It is a chilled and refreshing tomato soup which is often served in Summer to beat the heat!

After our lunch, we continued to explore the cobbled pedestrianized streets of Córdoba Old Town. 

We stopped by to have some gelato fix, and I do love having ice-cream in cold weather, as it will not melt easily. We picked up some souvenirs from Córdoba before heading back to our bus to continue our journey to Seville.

After 2 hours of journey, we finally reached Seville. We checked into our hotel, the TRH La Motilla. We were delighted that there were no more programmes lined up for us, which meant that we could do our own things! The first thing we did was to check if there were any nearby supermarkets and shopping areas. OMG! There was a German supermarket - ALDI, and it was just within walking distance from our hotel!

Once we settled down with our luggage, we got changed and we were ready to explore some nearby supermarkets, restaurants, and retail shops!

Just opposite our hotel, there was a Seville Factory Outlet, and I made some purchases from some of the shops. The prices were reasonable. As we walked further, we discovered a home-brand Spain fashion called ‘Lefties’ which offers trendy yet low-priced fashion, footwear and accessories for women, men, children, and babies. Both Baby and I picked up quite a few stuffs from this shop! We were glad to discover this gem in Spain!

After all the shopping, it was time for dinner, we settled at Vinoteca Castaño la Motilla which was literally opposite our hotel.

The food was phenomenal, and it was also pretty affordable. The shrimps and grilled octopus were tremendous. It was a very nice place to have tapas with great quality and price ratio.

We headed back to our hotel to do more packing with our massive loots that we had purchased from ALDI, Lefties and Factory Outlets and some souvenirs from Córdoba. I was happy that we were given so much time to do our usual favorite things during this guided tour. Day 5 of our trip fulfilled our shopping desires. I did hope that we would get more of these chances on other days too!

Stay tuned for my next blogpost, as we did more sight-seeing in Seville before heading to another country - Lisbon, Portugal.