4. Seville - did we mention it was warm

Catching the fast train from Madrid to Seville was pretty painless, and I listened to the Radio Sport commentary of the New Zealand All Blacks playing the Argentinian Pumas during the trip. Love it when the technology works at such moments. Our Airbnb apartment in Seville was just inside the old City and had almost effective air conditioning. Even the locals say it is hot for July, and depending on your source of information, it's in the early 40s Celsius most days.

Narrow Seville streets

The Spanish lifestyle doesn't appear to include early starts - when we told our Madrid hotelier that we would leave at 8am, he said to just leave the key in the box as it was too early for the reception desk to be staffed. A typical Spanish breakfast seems to be mid morning, then lunch and siesta from 2 or 3pm until 5 or 6pm, then dinner at 10pm or later. The down side of this for tourists is that the coolest time of the day is before 10.30am. We aspire to early starts but now that we are in the swing of the Spanish dinner timetable, we are often not in from dinner til 11pm, at which point we still need to get the apartment cool enough to sleep in (32'C overnight) and things tend to unravel from there.

In Seville we finally found the great Spanish cuisine that we had anticipated. Four tapas and drinks, all costing less than 20 euro and wonderful taste experiences. We soon found a 'favorite' restaurant but also ate at the El Rinconcillo Bar which has been serving drinks and tapas since 1670. At the El Rinconcillo, they literally chalk up your bill on the bar, which didn't seem too worse for wear for 345 years worth of chalk dust.

Our chalked up bill
 visible centre frame

Above Kim there are legs of ham perhaps
curing nicely from the 1670s

Kim's favourite tapa so far: Salmonjero (a tasty cold soup, originating from Cordoba in Andalusia, made from tomatoes, bread, oil, garlic and vinegar).

Fiona's favourite tapa so far: warm goat cheese, soaked in a sharp honey, sprinkled with walnuts and served with small pieces of toast drizzled in a very thick balsamic vinegar.

Another favorite: vinaigrette potatoes with mackerel - sounds unlikely but very good to eat.