We hear the weather is warm this week in England - ha! Not as warm as here - 41 degrees in Sevilla, and not much less at night. Thank god for those windmills making us feel less guilty about the air conditioning.
If you need to understand why the Spanish have a reputation for sometimes moving a little slowly, try Sevilla in July or August. It's impossible to take big steps or to move your feet in front of each other faster than a snail. Anyway, why?
This is a city developed by the Arabs who occupied Spain for 700 years. Side by side with the Jewish inhabitants and later the Christians, the architecture is unique blend of arabic and baroque - you can see pictures all over the internet, no need for us to add ours.
Our message about eating in Seville is, ignore the guides and listen to what we say. Michelin recommends some tapas bars - the ones we checked out highly commercialised, highly priced and highly empty. We have a favourite place - Barra Casa Robles, just up a narrow street to the west of the Cathedral. Here you can eat (for example) fresh fish and shellfish, revueltos de bacalao (scrambled eggs with salt cod), the best creamy and crispy croquetas (apart from ours) we have ever tasted, caldareta de cordero lechal (stew of baby lamb - you must suck the meat from the bones) and yet more puntillitas... several glasses of the house white won't hurt, and the coffee is good too. That was lunch.
Before we take you out for the evening, a siesta. It's worth describing our method for finding hotels while we travel. Internet access is relatively easy in Spain. The hotels mostly have it for free, although some charge (a reason to avoid in our minds) and in the smaller towns we have frequently found free community internet in the Plazas Majores. We take our laptop (more modern young things would have an i-phone) and book one or two days ahead, using http://www.booking.com/. In the summer season, away from the tourist resorts, a four-star business hotel with a swimming pool and all mod cons can be had for a (relative) song... €60 is typical for a double room. Often these places lack character but make up for it in comfort. The occasional night in a small converted house or convent for example, might make up for this. But mostly we would rather find character in the bars, because that's what we're about. In Sevilla, we stayed in the Hotel Fernando III - very comfortable and old fashioned, large rooms, large bathroom, pool etc. Right in the centre a few minutes walk from the cathedral. Just see what's the best match at the time you are looking.
Anyway - an evening in Seville is due. We went out at 10.30 pm. Earlier is too hot. At 10.30 it's still too hot. At 01.00 when you walk home, it's too hot, but many of the bars were busier then than earlier. But be warned - tapas is not an all-night thing, contrary to popular myth. Most stop food about 11 or 12 - check when you arrive. If you're still hungry at midnight, you may well find dinner in a restaurant that didn't open until 10.00 pm.
Having checked out and rejected the recommended places (see above) we ended up in Barbiana (Albareda 11). Serving vinos de Jerez from the barrel (manzanilla, oloroso, amontillado and moscatel) and an extensive list of freshly cooked tapas, as well as the usual salads etc in the chiller on the bar. We had a tortillita de camarones - a crisp fried pancake of tiny tiny shrimps in their shells - and MORE puntillitas. We just can't get enough of these tiny fried squidlets - they're so sweet and soft and crispy and lovely and what's most important, you can't get them at home so you must eat them while you can!
Three guys next to us at the bar were eating these huge bright red prawn things about the size 
of a banana. "Quiero uno de estos, por favor!" (A very useful phrase.) "Uno carabiñero?" says the barman, "Muy, muy bueno" says the guy beside us, reassuringly. It's not on the menu and we don't ask the price. Along it comes, fresh cooked and too hot to handle, so we have to watch it patiently until it cools down. (Actually Shareen isn't so patient and starts waving it around, dribbling prawny juices everywhere, what a waste...) Oh sweet, sweet flesh! How pink and tender! How, well, prawny actually! Phil squeezes spoonfuls of juice out of its head and we get bread to mop it up with. Worth every last cent of the €18 it cost (yeah, for one prawn...) You couldn't sell these in Swindon, even if you could get them, sadly. But look, we drank 8 glasses of Manzanilla between us and bought two for the kitchen by way of thanks and appreciation, and our total evening out cost us less than dinner for 2 anywhere in the UK would have. And much more fun.
of a banana. "Quiero uno de estos, por favor!" (A very useful phrase.) "Uno carabiñero?" says the barman, "Muy, muy bueno" says the guy beside us, reassuringly. It's not on the menu and we don't ask the price. Along it comes, fresh cooked and too hot to handle, so we have to watch it patiently until it cools down. (Actually Shareen isn't so patient and starts waving it around, dribbling prawny juices everywhere, what a waste...) Oh sweet, sweet flesh! How pink and tender! How, well, prawny actually! Phil squeezes spoonfuls of juice out of its head and we get bread to mop it up with. Worth every last cent of the €18 it cost (yeah, for one prawn...) You couldn't sell these in Swindon, even if you could get them, sadly. But look, we drank 8 glasses of Manzanilla between us and bought two for the kitchen by way of thanks and appreciation, and our total evening out cost us less than dinner for 2 anywhere in the UK would have. And much more fun.
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