Category Archives: 20th anniversary

carmona

25 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in 20th anniversary, friends, spain, tapas, travel, trips

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[click on collage to enlarge]

A few pics from an impromptu day trip to Carmona with Peter (aka Seville Concierge) and Markus (my friend who runs veoapartment.com). We left Sevilla around 11.30 and got to Carmona about half an hour later. Part of the motive for this trip was so Peter could do some research for his new biz, and both Markus and I will also be able to use some of the images and info collected today. But mostly it was just a lovely day out. Well, except for the bit where Peter got us lost and the other bit when the second tapas bar on my list ended up being closed, but otherwise it was lots of fun. We visited the old fortress, stopped in at the market, tried tapas at two places, walked A LOT through charming streets of whitewashed houses and beautiful old churches and palaces, and then finished off having cake, coffee & cava at the splendid Parador Hotel, a restored 14th century Moorish citadel.

I’ll be doing more of a more detailed write up about Carmona on the azahar Sevilla blog.

What did you do today?

el aljarafe

20 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by in 20th anniversary, food & drink, sevilla, spain, summer, tapas, trips

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El Aljarafe is Arabic for “knoll”, and is the name for the cluster of villages dotting the hills just outside Sevilla. I rarely venture out there other than to go to IKEA (in Castilleja de la Cuesta), mostly because it’s a pain to get to by bus. It would actually be fun to do a day trip to some of the little villages out there some time if I can convince someone with a car to do this with me. But I digress…

I’ve only been to Salteras once, about 12 years ago, when I was invited to a special lunch at one of the “parrilla” restaurants there. About thirty years ago the first one – La Bodega – opened in Salteras and was such a great success that soon other places started copying its “formula” of offering a simple menu based on BBQ grilled meats served with “papas arrugás” and “mojo picón”. These are small potatoes boiled in a small amount of very salty water leaving the skins wrinkled and sparkling with salt, which are then dipped in a spicy Canarian sauce. Soon Salteras was full of these establishments and became THE place to go for fabulous meat & potato meals. Since then the menus have become more extensive while the number of restaurants has diminished. Now there are about five left and yesterday I decided to go out there and try one out.

After a bit of online research I chose La Resolana because I liked the look of their website and I especially liked that they had a “tapas corner”, which meant that Peter and I could try more dishes. So we trekked down to the bus station just in time to catch the 1pm to Salteras and when the bus driver pulled out of the station and put on some rock-a-billy music it started to feel like a proper Road Trip. We got held up for awhile in a village just outside of Camas when the main road became blocked by a funeral procession. I’d never seen this before and got one of those odd “I’m living in Spain” moments as I watched a crowd of at least fifty people walking slowly behind a hearse, with half a dozen pallbearers in the lead. It was a sad and beautiful sight.

If you go to Salteras from Sevilla by car it would take you about ten minutes. The bus takes about 25 minutes (or 35 with funeral) and we stopped in places I didn’t even know existed. Luckily we had been told which stop in Salteras to get off at, which ended up being just a few minutes walk to La Resolana. And well, we had a wonderful lunch. As it was a hot afternoon in August the place was pretty quiet, though I’m told it’s always packed out during the rest of the year. I can see why. The service was great, the food excellent, and at one point when a Twitter friend asked me exactly which part of the pig “pluma” comes from (yes, I tweeted the whole lunch) one of the chefs brought me out a book showing me the different pork cuts. After that we got some boozy sorbets on the house and I got to take photos of everyone for Sevilla Tapas. If you want to see all the great stuff we had to eat then have a look here:
La Resolana

It was only after I got home that I realised this had actually been another of my 20th anniversary day trip! And I’m now keen to explore El Aljarafe a bit more. If I can find someone to take me…

[also posted on the azahar sevilla blog]

holidays at home

15 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in 20th anniversary, holidays, home, sevilla, spain, travel, trips

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Yesterday evening I decided to mix a little business with pleasure and go out to do some research on rooftop bars. I’ve actually had a blog post written on this since June but needed photos. So I went out with Peter and managed to get to five places before sunset (black sky with a blurry Giralda tower in the distance – not interesting!), stopping at the last one for a drink, and then returning to one of the previous ones for another, before heading home for a late snack. And although some work was involved it did feel a bit like being on holiday.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, because of Azar’s health situation I’ve postponed all my 20th anniversary travel plans other than day trips (though I’m still struggling with that one overnight biz trip to Córdoba) and have decided to spend the rest of August “on holiday” in Sevilla. This isn’t to say I won’t be working, just that I’ll be treating myself (and Peter) to going out more, and spending a bit less time in front of the computer. I haven’t had many tapas tours this month, and at first I was stressing about that, but now I’m just going to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer. You know, “this may be my last one” is always in the back of my mind and, especially after Pat’s death and with the next PET scan coming up soon, things feel more precarious than ever. So what the heck. Holidays at home.

my weekend in ronda

24 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in 20th anniversary, friends

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Where to start? It was quite a whirlwind weekend with lots of new experiences and chance encounters. Also lots of tapas and wine, lots of walking and talking, and lots of fun. Though I think my favourite moment was sitting on the Parador terraza late on Saturday afternoon watching the rooks clowning around over the gorge, sweeping past us and then, suddenly clapping wings to sides, they’d abruptly pause in midair before plummeting downwards headfirst letting out a gleeful shriek, then catching an upward current and doing it all over again. Their obvious joy was infectious and a delight to watch.

This whole adventure came about when new friend and soon to be semi-annual Sevilla resident Kathy Oler invited Peter and me to visit the pretty white village of Yunquera. She and her husband Walt had been planning to go there for the day to visit a couple who were living up in the mountains and running their own olive oil biz. This morphed into an overnight trip when I was able to find a charming B & B in Ronda that didn’t cost a fortune, and so off we went…

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weekend in ronda

21 Saturday Jul 2012

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Here I go again… this time off to Ronda for the weekend, as part of my 20th anniversary in Spain celebrations. I almost can’t believe that the last time I was in Ronda was six years ago (!!) when buddy Craig was here visiting and we went on a Magical Mystery Tour. We stopped off there for lunch after a hair-raising drive up (and I mean UP) from the coast, on our way home. That was before Twitter and Sevilla Tapas existed, so you can imagine that this time I am going to arrive with plenty of suggestions for great places to eat and interesting places to visit.

The idea for this trip came up the other day while out having lunch with Kathy and her husband Walt, whom I’d met a few weeks ago while – you guessed it – out having tapas. We struck up a conversation in the bar and have been hanging out ever since. And so Kathy mentioned that they were going to visit a small privately managed olive grove near Ronda on Saturday and invited Peter and me to join them. This has turned into a weekend overnight stay, which is as long as I’m comfortable leaving Azar on his own, and I’m really looking forward to it. Found a (hopefully) nice B&B online, but we probably won’t be spending much time there anyhow. And I think for this trip I’ll leave the laptop at home and just take the iPad.

So okay, follow on @SevillaTapas and @azaharSevilla if you want to see what we’re up to, though there will no doubt be a full report here early next week. Off to meet Kathy and Walt!