28 Tuesday Aug 2018
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Travelling in August, and especially arriving on a Monday, is not great for finding places open. At least half of the recommended pintxo bars on my list were closed for holidays. Perhaps because of this we found the food a bit uninteresting (and very mayonnaisey!).
We fared better at Casa Rufo (below), a restaurant that was recommended by my landlord. Cosy ambiance, great staff, delicious food and wine… AND we got to sit down. 😉
27 Monday Aug 2018
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Wish you were here!
16 Thursday Aug 2018
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So it won’t be long before I head out on my second week of summer holidays. This time to places I have NEVER been to before. Bilbao and San Sebastián. Well, okay, back in May 1992 I did pass through San Sebastián on my way to Spain from Bristol, but we couldn’t find anywhere to spend the night where we could safely unload all the crap in our car (all my worldly belongings), so we moved on.
Fast forward 26 years and I will be visiting these two fabulous cities with friends and also with a lot of great local advice as to what to see and – of course! – where to eat. All those little black stars you can see mapped out are recommended places to eat. And yeah I know, won’t get to most of them, but I love having that comfort factor, knowing I don’t ever have to experience a bad meal somewhere.
The other stuff – monuments, museums, etc – are much easier to sort out. And it looks like I’m even going to be going up a fucking funicular in Bilbao (eek!). But I am really excited about this GETAWAY because they are places I don’t know and have always wanted to visit.
Meanwhile, don’t worry about the cats. A cat-loving friend is coming to spend the week at Casa Azahar and make sure everybody is sufficiently fed and cuddled. And my friend is also looking forward to a WEEK WITH CATS.
Does anybody else have any late-summer travel plans?
18 Wednesday Jul 2018
Posted in food & drink, friends, getaways, tapas, tapas bars, travel, trips
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John, Peter & Finn
Unlike our first two action packed days in Granada, our final day there was entirely unplanned, other than we wanted to go back to a tapas bar that we had always loved, Taberna Gamboa. Which we did, after a nice pre-lunch walk down from the Alhambra, but we were sadly disappointed. The food wasn’t as good as we remembered and the service was worse. Gayle told us it had recently changed hands, so perhaps that’s the reason. Oh well.
Our friend John and his nephew Finn joined us for lunch, finishing with a pen̼ltima at Alameda. In fact, Alameda was our pen̼ltima stop each of the three days we were in Granada Рsomehow we never got around to actually having a meal there. But I have to say that the complimentary tapas there were some of the best we had.
Peter and I left Granada at the same time but in different directions. I headed to Málaga to continue my little holiday, and he returned to Sevilla to cat and house sit. It was a really good visit and, thanks to Peter’s planning, we got to do a few things there we had never done before.
disappointing food at Taberna Gamboa
excellent complimentary tapas at Restaurante Alameda
16 Monday Jul 2018
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 Wish you were here!
casa azahar 