Category Archives: spain

laura & erik

02 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by in food & drink, friends, gastronomy, sevilla, sherry, spain, tapas, tapas bars, tapas tours, twitter friends

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I first met Laura @laurawburgess and Erik @thewhiskykiwi at Bodegas Urium in Jerez in September 2016, and would have met them a few months earlier in Sevilla, but I was hit with a random 24-hour bug and ended up giving them a “remote” tapas tour from bed via my iPhone.

Happily they were in town again yesterday and we were able to meet up for a fabulous lunch at Bodeguita Romero. They also joined me on last night’s Sevilla Tapas Tour with two other couples, and well, the chemistry couldn’t have been better. Right from the start everyone started talking and joking with each other. It was a great evening.

I will be seeing more of Laura & Eric at Vinoble, which starts tomorrow and is actually the reason they are here now. Can’t wait!

corpus christi 2018

01 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by in culture, religion, sevilla, spain

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I almost missed the annual tradition of getting up (way too) early to walk the rosemary and flower pet strewn Corpus procession route before everything gets going (and everything gets trampled underfoot). But when I texted Peter to say I wasn’t going he said he was going anyhow and so, thus challenged, I was up, dressed and out the door in 20 minutes. I’ve only missed Corpus here four times in 25 years: once when I was in Granada, another time when I was in Lisbon, then London in 2015, and one other time when I was too sick on chemo to go out. So I knew I would regret not going. And it proved to be worth it.

We got almost completely around the route before deciding to stop for breakfast, so the procession was in full swing by the time we finished. We didn’t get to see a lot of that, which was fine by me. But I did stop by ALL THE ALTARS this year, which you can see below. I am always amazed at how much work and preparation (those arches take an entire month to build) is involved for a four-hour event. Crazy. But I love it.
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rosario

08 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in sevilla, spain, tapas, tapas bars

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When I first met Rosario last week I thought it would be nice to bring her the photos I took, because the bar doesn’t have a website or use social media, and when I tried showing them to her on my phone she the images were too small for her to see. Anyhow I did this today, and she loved them! And there’s that beautiful smile again. Then we got to talking about her late husband, how they met in their home village near Santander, and she also spoke about her mother (Rosario is one of 12 children), and coming to live in Sevilla over 60 years ago. Turns out Rosario is 88 and still works in Bodega San José with her children every day. An amazing woman. I’m so happy to have met her.