Seville Day 1 – Boating, Biking, Bullfighting.

Saturday was slipping away while I waited to collect Prisci from Mazarrón after work. The weekend in Sevilla had a length dependant upon her finish time. My Spanglais Señora could finish anytime between 14:00 and 17:00. This day the teams in Cañada suffered a few machine faults and finished their last shift of the week at 16:30.

The drive to Seville is 5 hours, 500 kms

(In total we drove for 10 hours, over a return journey of 1000 Kms at a cost of £50)

Seville is celebrating the seven day ‘Feria de Abril’ ending Sunday. The city will be packed, and is notable for difficult parking (with the hotel unable to provide any) and a last check-in at the H. Boutique Voluve

(Calle Miguel Mañara, 4, Seville, 41004 Spain)

being 22:00.

Their website explains you will need to come back in the morning if you miss the check-in time!

Tom-Tom said arrival would be 21:55, then find parking and hotel (which is in a restricted driving area).

The roads in Spain are fantastic, the traffic out of city is minimal, and my Volvo C30 whizzed along to arrive in Seville at 21:40.

As I drove as close to the cobbled streets area as I could, a space was vacated in a weekend free parking spot. A three minute walk to check-in and a stroll to the river for supperBusy streets with the tail end of the days festivities. Hundreds of women in Flamenco dresses and hordes of party dressed families filled every inch of beautiful streets with amazing buildings

We dined by the river at the Rio Grande, which looked a great choice from the bridge. Our drinks and then starters took 30 mins to arrive, and after finishing it was another 30 mins before the table was cleared and we had bread ready for the meal. Prisci was certain she saw my meal head to the wrong table just before hers was served. After 10 mins of waiting for a waiter to acknowledge our arm waving, I went to the servery and cancelled my meal. They said sorry but would prepare a fresh one. The note for the chef was put at the end of orders for six other meals! I laughed, took the note down and we asked for our bill. They then charged for the wrong table delivery/ unmade new meal 😂

“Try again” I told them. We now had five waiters explaining that it was a mistake and they said sorry so could we just pay as we’d ordered the food😂😂

A new bill was prepared, but included Prisci’s uneaten meal that had gotten cold waiting for us to eat together. I and the six waiters discussed this, with the result a new bill was prepared to stop the stand-up service failure debate progressing in the full restaurant. Starters and drinks only paid for, we stepped out into pouring rain to watch fireworks and head across the river to rest ready for a busy Sunday