Day 54 Ronda to Seville via Antequera-Santa Ana

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A very comfortable and unrushed train journey to Seville. Jane read and dozed while I viewed the ever changing countryside with its mountains, undulating hills covered with olive groves, grass fields for animal feed, sunflower crops and cereal crops as well as small farm hamlets scattered along the sides of the gentle valleys.

Seville! A new experience for Jane and myself was the taxi ride from the station to our accommodation through the narrowest of narrow streets enclosed by high walled buildings; that no one could fit either side of the vehicle. Jane felt a little claustrophobic as the ride progressed. Our hidden but once we saw our destination all was well. This cozy, informal hotel is set in a restored 18th-century property in the Barrio de Santa Cruz district and is a 5-10 minute walk from … everything … The warm (tone) rooms feature boldly accented walls and direct access to courtyards and patios. The hotel offers 2 traditional Andalusian courtyards with seating areas.

We lunched virtually immediately at a Peruvian-Spanish restaurant. I truly did not want my meal to finish. It was that delicious that my taste buds which are always in operation were just craving for more and more. Fortunately, discipline in the likes of Jane, forbad me to have more.

We wandered the streets until we found the Rio Grande river, booked a bus trip to Cordoba for Tuesday, cut through the gardens of Reales Alcazares and headed to our room as we were pretty tired.

Siesta over, we felt revitalised so headed off for a walk hoping to find an ice cream shop. However, on our walk we stumbled across a bar that had its TV on showing … a live … bullfight … in Madrid. It was about to begin and was doing all the showmanship beforehand. This surprised us no end as we thought that bullfighting had ended in Spain. How wrong we were. We watched the ‘fight’ to the gruesome end. Sad.

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