Transportation

June 6, 2017

Seville may be one of the most walkable cities in the world. Although there is an efficient train and bus system that I see stations for all around the city, as well as rental bike stands that many of the locals use to get around, I have walked everywhere. The building of the University of Seville that we go to is about a 10 minute walk away from our home stay. The Catedral and the center of the city is about a 20 minute walk away.

Even in Boston I track my step count on my phone’s health app, so it is always a treat to look at my step count at the end of each day here. My average for the week is 20,390 steps and my highest step count and personal best is 32,874 steps on May 16th. Walking everywhere is not a problem because I find the weather really pleasant, especially because we are indoors taking a siesta for the hottest parts of the day. Also our walks are so scenic — walking to the city’s center means crossing through the Parque de Maria Luisa and the Plaza de Espana which are sights that will never get old.

We took cabs to further parts of the city. A 15-minute ride was about 10 euros that we split amongst the three or four of us in a cab. We took private buses for our longer drives on excursions to different cities or the beach. Other than that, I do not have experience with different forms of transportation. Our classes in Barcelona will be right next to our hostel, but I am pretty sure I will need public transportation to explore that city.

One of my bigger fears before coming here was navigating the cities, but I have developed a pretty good mental map of Seville. I think part of this is that I used a paper map to navigate for the first three days before I had a phone plan, so I really had to be focused rather than be a subject of a GPS. Still, Seville is probably not the best test of my navigation skills because it is just walking. Let’s hope that I don’t get on any wrong trains in Barcelona.

Written By

Rishab Mathur

While most people in my high school Spanish classes used the lights dimming and TV turning on as a cue to pull out unfinished homework or catch up on sleep, I was always fascinated by the videos of people roaming around Spain. So when I saw the opportunity to be one of those people, I had to take it. I chose this program because studying sociology, I can actually analyze and understand the cultural differences between Spain and all the places I’ve lived in the past. My family lived in Hyderabad, India from 2007 to 2010 and those were the most formative and fascinating years of my life. You can not stay in another country for an extended period of time and not have it majorly impact you. That is exciting. I love food and I love music so I’ll be detailing Spanish food and music with all the adjectives I know. I hope you enjoy reading about my travels!