The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Hola Sevilla

After 36 hours in transit, we spent last night at the Barcelona airport, too tired to want to do much more than take a shower and get some sleep. Barcelona will have to wait for another trip ... and we always travel with the idea that we will be back. Eventually we will be wrong, of course, but in the meantime it slows down the frantic-ness we see from many speeded-up tourists who race around trying to do it all and come back with little more than pictures of buildings.

We connected with our 11:30 flight to Seville and were back on our original schedule, arriving in Seville early this afternoon.

The cab driver dropped us off as close as he said he could get to our pension (he lied but I think it was just because it would have involved more driving for the same fare! After asking several people for directions, we wandered down increasingly narrow roads until finally found our little pension in the rabbit warrren of alleys of the old town -- some barely 4' wide -- including the "street" our pension was on!

Our home for the next two days is the tiny Pension Cordoba, a dozen tidy rooms in an old house with a showpiece tiled courtyard in the middle. The day was unseasonably hot -- somewhere in the mid-90s -- and the air conditioning in the room was a VERY welcome amenity!

We nested, wandered out for a cold beer and some tapas. When the weather warms up, it seems all of life in Europe moves outdoors. Fortunately, between orange trees everywhere, parks and the narrow streets, there's lots of shade in our temporary home of Barrio Santa Cruz, the once-thriving Jewish Quarter of the city. That heyday was ended by the Spanish Inquisition which started in Seville.

Lunch was under the trees (and the umbrellas) across from the Gardens of Murillo, an enticingly shady park (more photos tomorrow). The beer was ice cold and the tapas were just enough to take the edge off our hunger without adding a ton of calories. I think I am going to like this style of eating ... and may even end up losing weight on this trip!

Then it was back to the cool air of our room for a siesta, also a very civilized idea. Around 7pm we wandered out again. Around the corner we ran into the first of several weddings we saw tonight. The car is a 1928 Model A Ford touring car, one of two matched vehicles outside the church. It was a gorgeous automobile. A block or two down, the street opened up to a tree-lined few blocks lined with bars, restaurants and shops, ending at the Cathedral of Seville and the Alcazar, a 10th century palace. We plan to see more of it tomorrow afternoon after the tourist groups have left. We did run into another round of wedding photos outside its walls, though.

For dinner -- if that's the right word -- we picked one of the cafes along Mateos Gago at random (well actually because their tapas were a euro less than what everyone else was charging!) and settled in for another round of tapas and some excellent Spanish rioja. We had a Spanish omelette, here more of a potato fritta, some excellent Iberian ham, a bit of pork tenderloin and the nicest surprise of the night: roasted goat cheese with sweet peppers in what tasted like a balsamic reduction. It was an awesome combination ... and a dish we will undoubtedly try to duplicate for our next dinner party. I recommend you consider for your menu as well.

A bit more roaming through the back streets and we gratefully folded into bed for a solid night's sleep. Perhaps by tomorrow our bodies will be fully on Spanish time.

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