Seville

Our arrival in Seville was interesting. As we negotiated our way round narrow streets with parked cars inches from the  wing mirror on one side and houses the other, we turned a corner and suddenly we were in the middle of a street market. "What the ....…..!" was quickly followed by some comments about the usefulness of the sat nav, followed by "mind them DVDs" as we edged past a pavement display of dodgy movies. We tried to buy a couple of t-shirts through the van window, but we were unable to negotiate the price down. No one appeared to be bothered by us driving through, they probably just thought mad Brits!

We went to a flamenco show on Thursday, it was set in a 15th century palace. The flamenco was good and the guitar playing had to be seen (or heard) to be believed, great evening.

We found our way to the flamenco easily, but afer a couple of beers and in the dark, the 20 min walk back to the hotel was a challenge after we got hopelessly lost.  If you've never been to Seville the streets are just like a maze, very narrow with tall buildings either side, so its really difficult to get a focal point. The map was small print and difficult to read in the dark. The various people we asked as we made our slow way back were so helpful and the last couple, thankfully, knew where the hotel was or we might still have been wandering around now. We managed to crawl into bed at 3am! 

The following day we explored around the cathedral area of town and after last night's debacle we decided we would get a taxi back. Bob went to the taxi at the front of the rank and as he was looking for the driver, a guy got in the car. Thinking this was the driver Bob asked him to take us back to the hotel. He didn't respond much so we showed him the map, he then got out of the cab and walked away. Forgetting for a moment that we are in a left hand drive country, we had just been trying to get the taxi passenger, who we think assumed Bob was the driver, to drive us back. We had a good laugh about that one and it turns out that you take the cab from the back of the queue not the one at the front. What's that all about.

On Friday night we enjoyed the football, they were a couple of good games and we managed a slightly earlier night.

Seville was the furthest point west on the tour, we now start to head north. We had a overnighter in Cordoba where it was hot hot hot, 34° at 22:00. We watched our adopted team Belgium, lose to Argentina - nice to know that the usual kiss of death has resumed for the teams we support, and the Holland v Costa Rica game must have been been the most boring of the tournament. This was our last stop in Andolucia. Next stop Madrid and then the bull run!