Life in Culebrón

Maggie and I got married down in Gibraltar a couple of weeks ago. The chances that I won't blog about that are very slim so we'll leave the details for now. Anyway, after a few days on the Rock, with friends and family, our wedding party dispersed and we newlyweds toddled off to wander around Andalucía. Our first stop was Seville.  Now I'm not sure how many times I've been to Sevilla but, without trying too hard, I can easily bring eight or nine visits to mind. The very first time I was there I stayed over three weeks and, as historic centres don't change much, I've always felt to know the heart of the city quite well. The terrible thing is that, looking back at my photo albums, it turns out that the last time we stayed there was fifteen years ago. Seville is a great place to visit. It's just full of Spanish clichés, it brims over with history, culture and life. I've had some interesting experiences in Seville over the years, not all of them pleasant and...

We did a bit of a circular tour last week. Up to Albacete, across to Cuenca and back through Teruel before coming home.  Along the way we  visited the winery in Fuentealbilla, run by the Iniesta family, (Andrés Iniesta scored the winning goal for Spain in the 2010 World Cup), we looked at the huge 3rd Century AD Roman Mosaic in the tiny village of Noheda and we stayed in Albarracín which has city status even though it's smaller than either Algueña or Salinas. We even visited some old pals in Fuentes de Rubielos in Teruel. I often think Spanish written information is patchy or poor. I wonder why there is no list of the tapas on offer or why the office doesn't show opening times. I have theories; those theories go from the link between information and power to high levels of illiteracy in the Franco years to the much less fanciful idea that Spaniards simply prefer to talk to a person. There's no doubt that written information here is much better, and more common, than in once...

Eating is a bit of a thing in Spain. Not a bit of a thing like it is in South Sudan, not in the sense of needing to eat to avoid dying, but eating for pleasure. It's also a never exhausted topic of conversation. Lunch is the main meal of the day in Spain and cheap set meals, a few euros on each side of 10€, are available all over the place. I know that most Britons living here don't agree with me but I can't remember the last time I had a memorable set menu in that price range. They're fine, some are better than others, most are perfectly pleasant but few, none actually, come to mind as showing much flair. For a bit of cooked sea bass or steak the set menus are incredible value. The ones I enjoy most though are the restaurants that have set meals costing something like 25 to 35€. Its enough money for the restaurants to be creative but, when the bill comes, I don't wonder about the sanity of just having spent a new mobile phone's worth of cash on something that w...