Andalucia and the Costa Del Sol - July 16-27, 2010

 

Costa Del Sol
We’ve flown 6 flights on Easy Jet flights without any problems. No long delays and no major annoyances except Easy Jet is very strict about the one carry-on bag per person. The 7th flight, from Milan to Malaga was the one that caught us. The plane coming into Milan from Dubrovnik was late by about 30 minutes. Then the fuel truck was late by about 30 minutes, which caused us to miss our runway departure slot, another 20 minutes.
We finally arrived in Malaga around 9:45pm, about 90 minutes late. By the time we got out of the car rental it was 10:30pm. By the time we got to the apartment it was about 11:30p. We dropped the bags and headed over to the Grand Hotel Elba Estepona a few hundred feet away, sat at the piano bar deck, and listened to waves slapping the shore while we enjoyed a few cold beers and iced campari. We closed the bar at 1:30am and after a great night’s sleep we woke up in this amazing apartment overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
This is our 4th apartment rental on this trip and absolutely the best so far, in our seven weeks; we booked 7 apartments and 5 hotels. There are two spacious bedrooms, two large bathrooms, a fully equipped kitchen, a large terrace overlooking the beach and sea (less than 100’ away) a good washing machine and really fast, non-stop Internet. If you’re looking for an apartment on the Costa del Sol, I highly recommend this one.
After a week here we’re really sad to leave. Here at Arena Beach (arena is Spanish for sand) we spend most of our time hangin out on the terrace or the beach. It’s really relaxing. We’ve slowed down to a crawl, but we did manage to get out on a couple of interesting day trips.

Arena Beach is technically located in the town of Estepona, once a small fishing village, now a big fishing town with a population of 60,000, probably twice that much during the summer months. The 23km of sandy beach is an attraction for people from all over the world.
Estepona grew up after the big urbanization of neighboring Marbella got too crowded. We stayed in Marbella a few years ago. It’s a lot more relaxed here. In the 1990, the Walt Disney Corporation was very serious about making Estepona the site of EuroDisney, but in the end the French managed to convince them to build the park outside of Paris, a location that was probably better for Disney and a lot better for us here in Estepona.

The area has the usual Andalusian history, Moorish invasion and occupation, Christian reclamation in the 15th century. There are remnants of the old times on the coast with old pirate lookout towers and abandoned crumbling fortresses but these days most of the Costa Del Sol is filled with what is known as urbinizacion, condo developments and beautiful ports with boat slips and restaurants. It does not suck!

In the heart of old Estepona town is a quaint stroll through the old streets that close down everyday from 12:30p – 5p for the long Spanish siesta. It’s too hot during the day to do anything but sleep. The streets don’t really see life again till way after 10pm.
At the other end of town is the Bullfighting Ring (every town worth it’s reputation has one) and the port, where fishing boats still come in every morning with their catch, the restaurants troll for diners at night. On Sundays there’s a big outdoor market at the Port. It’s the usual handicrafts market but we managed to find the authentic Panama hat table (which are actually and traditionally made in Ecuador). We got a 20-minute lecture on Panama Hats and how the hat salesman thought Sean Connery looks like a vegetable wearing his Borsolino/Charlie Chan hat. Gretchen, by the way, looks fabulous in her new Plantation style (authentico) Panama.

After 2 days in this paradise on the beach, we finally decided to venture out for a day trip to the Rock of Gibraltar, or Gib as the locals call it.
The ancient Greeks called this the Pillar of Hercules, which makes visual sense by the view from our terrace. The rock of Gibraltar is on one side of the Strait and what possibly Africa on the other. It really does look like a gate of sorts. According to the legend of the 12 Labors of Hercules, this was his westernmost point of travel, overlooking the end of the world.
Gibraltar is named for the Berber general Tariq ibn-Ziyad who led the first Moorish invasion into Spain in 711. It was called “Jabal Tariq”, or the mountain of Tariq. Over the years Jabal Tariq became Gibraltar. The only remains of the Moors are the old lookout fortresses, which is still used as part of the local prison.

The upper part of the rock is a nature preserve for the 250 (or more) Barbary Macaques (referred to as the Gibraltar Apes). They’re the only wild monkeys in all of Europe and they are indeed wild. They’re used to living with the other inhabitants of the Rock, but they’re not sure of the laws of modern civilization. They roam the mountain in gangs and fight for territory and food. When food gets scarce they come into the town and woe be to those who leave their windows open. They’ve been known to snatch some pretty valuable things. However, they look so cute and playful that tourists can’t help themselves and reach out to play with the monkeys. Our guide Kevin warned us to “beware!” They bite, they pick your pockets and they jump on you with their shit covered monkey fur. We got close, but not too close, although I was used as a springboard when one of them jumped on my back on his way to a recently opened bag of peanuts.

The monkeys might have been on the rock prior to the British, but thanks to the Brits, they’ll be around a bit longer. The old superstition says if the monkeys ever leave, so will the British. Maybe this is why the Brits have put so much attention into keeping the monkey population thriving.

Gibraltar has been in the hands of the British since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, after the war of the Spanish Succession, when Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, the House of Savoy and the Holy Roman Empire drew swords against France and Spain. Spain has been trying to rid the Iberian Peninsula of the British for a long time. They tried wars, embargoes and starvation. It’s strange they never thought of just removing the monkeys.

From 1969 to 1982, Francisco Franco put into effect a blockade of all goods going in and out. Gibraltar had to get everything from Morocco until 1982. Cars weren’t allowed through the border until 1984.
In 2004 there was a referendum in Gibraltar and 97% (of the over 30,000 inhabitants) voted to remain as British over Spain. It looks like the Spanish will just have to learn to love the British being here.


We read the cable car is a great way to get to he top of the Rock but the tour van seemed a better idea. The cable car cost about the same price for the round trip but the price of the van tour included the entrance to both the St Michael’s cave and the Siege tunnels dug during the war with Spain from 1782-1783. It also included visits to the Ape dens, lookout points and a running commentary from Kevin our tour driver. If we had taken the Cable car we would have still had to walk around 6 km in the intense heat up and down the really steep hills to get to these attractions. The heat had already surpassed 35°C (97°F) and the thought of climbing a mountain in this heat was way outside of my reality.

There are more than 150 caves dug into the rock, covering close to 52 kilometers, some of them going back to Neanderthal times. St Michael’s is the largest, a Jurassic cave filled with stalactites and stalagmites formed from water dripping off the limestone. The cave’s been used for picnics, parties, duels and military hideouts. During World War II it was a hospital. These days a concert hall that also functions as the site of the annual Miss Gibraltar contest occupies the largest chamber. We were told that witches also gather here to invoke the spirit world. The tunnels go down a long way. One of the legends says that the cave is bottomless and actually connects Spain to Morocco under the Strait of Gibraltar, which would explain how the Barbary macaques got here.

The Siege tunnels in the Rock were dug out by the British to hold off the forces of Spain and France during the “Great Siege of Gibraltar” from Sept 1782 till the spring of 1783. Spain and France were supplying arms and support to the American Revolution and thinking the British troops were weakened from the war with the American colonies, it would be the perfect time to attack them in Gibraltar.
The 337’ of limestone tunnel was cut in just 52 weeks. Close to 500 men died of suffocation before airshafts were blown into the sides of tunnel. The shear accomplishment of building the tunnels is homage to the strength and fortitude of the British troops. At the time they were digging it thought we would have been rooting for the French and the Spanish. After all it was during the American Revolution.

In 1805, under the command of Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson, the British took on the Spanish again, this time it was an outnumbered British Navy against the combined French and Spanish Navy of Napoleon in the Cape of Trafalgar, off the Atlantic Coast of Spain near what is now called Los Canos de Meca. Nelson was killed during the battle and his ship, the HMS Victory was crippled, but the British victory here gave the British superiority of the sea.

Nelson's body was preserved in a cask of brandy and tied to the mainmast of the Victory. Oddly enough, the HMS Pickle towed the pickled Nelson back to Gibraltar. Nelson was shipped back to England for a grand funeral but there are still some of the casualties buried here in the Trafalgar cemetery.

Although the British Navy used to provide most of the economy, these days it’s Internet gambling. Gibraltar has a very favorable tax code for gambling. The other main industry is tourism. This is a VAT free country. It’s the biggest duty-free shop on the planet and everything is a bargain, well, everything except the food and gasoline we bought on the way out of town. Although we did eat one of the local treats known as calentita, a beadlike pizza dough made with chickpea flour and covered with a sauce of onions, mushrooms and tomatoes. It was real greasy and real good.

The main street is called, of course, Main Street. It’s about 1km long filled with watches, jewelry, alcohol, perfume, cigars and tobacco, leather goods all at duty free prices. There is a customs house at the border where the Spanish check your passports on the way in and the British (wearing Bobby hats) check them on the way out. But no one ever checks to see what you’ve brought in or out of the Rock. The “items to declare” lane seems forever empty.

Jerez del la Frontera
Our second day trip from the beach was about 130 km northwest to Jerez de la Frontera, the fifth largest city in Andalusia, which doesn’t sound like a lot but it is a substantial 206,000 people. Most of the old central city is designated pedestrian zone, which was great while we were walking but not so great when we were trying to get out of town and ended up driving on a few foot only streets. The looks from the locals were priceless.

The fame of Jerez lies with its Andalusian horses, Flamenco dancing and the fortified wine. We call it Sherry. They call it Jerez. The English speakers of the world are the only ones who call it Sherry. For Spain, Portugal, Italy, France it’s Xeres (pronounced hair-reth, of hair-res). The name goes back to the Phoenician settlement, Xeres. Over the years the name became Xerez and finally Jerez and now the name is synonymous with the protected Domain of Origin stamp. Any wine named Jerez, Xeres or Sherry and must come from this area.

Jerez (Sherry) is basically white wine (from Palomino, Pedro Ximenez or Moscatel grapes) fortified with brandy. Fortified wines last a lot longer and were a favorite of sailors back in the 15th and 16th centuries. Columbus traveled with casks of sherry on his voyage to the new world. Magellan supposedly spent more money on sherry than on weapons when he prepared his ships to sail around the world, and after Francis Drake and his pirates sacked Cadiz, he brought 2,900 barrels back home to London. The English were hooked. By the 17th century, it was the most popular alcoholic drink in Europe.

The types range from the lighter Fino to Amontillado the darker Oloroso. We got lost in the old Barrio San Miguel and stumbled upon the very famous sherry bar, Tabanco San Pablo. We knew it was famous because as we were inside the local news station was airing a story on the bar and the owner Jesus Munoz, the same guy who served us a few ice-cold glasses of the Oloroso. Yes, it was quite tasty and packed a powerful buzz.

Jerez is filled with all the big sherry bodegas like Sandeman, Harvey’s Bristol cream. The biggest bodega however is Tio Pepe, the largest sherry house in Europe. Unfortunately, we never made to the tour. It was one of those decisions I regretted later but now we a reason to go back. Mostly I wanted to see the famous drunken mice bouncing off the famous casks and the famous Ratonero Bodeguero Andaluz (a rat terrier that kind of looks like a Jack Russell terrier) bred to chase after them. I can’t believe we didn’t stop in.

Fortified wines do come from many countries. Sherry and Madeira wines come from Spain, Port wine from Portugal and Marsala and Vermouth from Italy. I was trying to think if any fortified wines were made in the US. Yes, there are. In our country we produce such wino favorites as MD 20/20, Thunderbird, Wild Irish Rose, Night Train and others where cheap wine is added to some really nasty alcohol.

The Equestrian school was another place we didn’t visit. It’s the second most famous in Europe. The first is the Spanish School in Vienna, where the famed Lipizzaner Stallions were originally bred from Andalusian stock.
The art of fine horsemanship and dressage has been associated with the Spanish for a long time, especially with Andalusian and Arab horses. They’ve been a favorite of the Royalty and Military leaders from the time of the Carthaginians to the Romans, Moors, Spanish and eventually the entire known world.

What we did see in Jerez though was the old Moorish Alcazar, even though it took us a while to find it. The accent is on the second syllable by the way, Alcazar.

This 11th century Moorish fortress is in great condition although we don’t know if it was well maintained or restored. The minaret was turned into a bell tower when the Christians claimed it in the 1264. The Moorish baths are the most complete 11th century Arab baths we’ve ever seen. All three chambers (hot, warm and cool) are still well defined and could easily be restored to work again. The gardens are lush, filled with cooling pools and olive trees. The peaceful small mosque is just the right size for a small family. A couple of old olive presses added in the 17th or 18th century are also on display. One was used to make olive paste, the other to press the oil. They were enormous and probably managed a large production in their day.

The real treat here was the Camera Oscura, which has nothing to do with the fortress but we were glad it was there. The device gives a 360° view of the city from a pair of small magnifying lenses and a rotating mirror, projected through a periscope like tube onto a concave white bowl surface below. It’s the original Google earth, except that these images are living. You can see birds fly by, trees and laundry flutter in the wind. You can probably see what’s going on in the apartments across the street as well, but no one as of yet has complained of invasion of privacy.

And so we left Costa del Sol relaxed, tanned and minus Gretchen’s iPhone which somehow got lost on our first day here. It might be on the floor of the front seat of the blue VW Golf in space 77, the first car offered to us by Avis at the Malaga airport. We didn’t take the car because the number of scratches declared on the rental agreement were a lot less than and the number of dings, scratches, gouges and dents actually on the car. The iPhone might have slipped off her pants when Gretchen checked the interior of into the car. We went back to the Avis office the following day but the car had been rented. Still no word. It could be time for the new iPhone 4G. It’s a bit weird that last year when we were in Andalusia, Gretch’s laptop blew off the terrace table in Ronda. Hmm, could there be an Andalusian curse?

We drove through the beautiful Serrania di Ronda Mountains past Ronda and into the area of Los Pueblos Blanco, the small white villages. It’s an easy decision what color to paint your house.
It’s an easy drive but we have to get a new map. Our 2002 map has different names for the roads, the 376 are now the 397, and the 334 are now the 382. It got a bit confusing and when we took the exit to Carmona we ended up on a something filled with more potholes than tar. We bounced around for the next 20km but finally arrived in this small city, once the summer home of King Pedro of Castile (Pedro the Cruel) in the 14th century. You can see more about Pedro by clicking on the link at the top of the page to our Seville journal from 2009.
Carmona was once an old Roman city; the remains of a Roman necropolis and an amphitheatre were discovered here in 1881. It’s also the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Arabs in the 9th century when over 7,000 troops of the Abbasid Arabs from Bagdad attacked the 700 Umayyad Moors of Abd-ar Rahman held inside the fortress. More willing to die in a fight than starve inside the fortress, the mighty 700 of Abd-ar Rahman destroyed the Abbasids, cut off the heads of their leaders and sent them back to Mecca preserved in salt.

Carmona is one of those villages much easier to walk than to drive. The streets are really narrow. It’s actually a really beautiful Andalusian town with a couple of Moorish fortress, a lot of Baroque churches, an archeology museum and the Roman Necropolis. Adding to all of this is the "Ruta de las tapas", a group of 17 local restaurants and tapas bars that have gained the right to bear the blue and white “route of the tapas” tile outside their restaurant as if it was a Michelin Star. We have no idea what it takes to get a blue tile, tapas obviously, but the places range from a hole in the wall bar to the grand dining hall of the Parador. With all this going on we thought it would be a great stop for a couple of days and it would have been it wasn’t so hot. We are in the frying pan of Spain. Average temperatures this time of year hover around 40°C (around 104°F). The only air movement is from the wings of the flies and they buzz by your head. The heat has driven the entire town inside. They don’t come back out till close to 10pm when it just starts to cool off.

There are two Alcazars (Moorish Fortress/Palaces) in Carmona. Our hotel, the Alcazar del la Reina was neither of them. In looks like an old Patrician home that was converted into a hotel back in the 1970’s and supposedly renovated again a few years ago. The price of a room was very good, so inexpensive we sprang for the grand Suite Azul. The room was clean, the furniture was a reproduction of 1930’s style and there was a good Internet connection. We probably would have been happy there if the AC functioned better. The poor AC just couldn’t keep up with the demand from the heat.

We ventured out for dinner around 8:30p and finally stopped at a small relaxed bar called Taberna El Cubete with the coveted blue and white “Route of the Tapas” tile outside the door. Their specialty is “queso ardiente”, spicy deep fired cheese balls, but they were out of them. Instead we got a goat cheese cooked in peppery oil and some deep fried sardines (boquerones) with a mild Spanish style crème fraise. Let’s just say they were both an acquired taste that we hadn’t acquired yet.

Next we walked over to the Parador of Carmona and watched the sprawling Vega with a couple of cold beers before walking down the street to Molino de la Romera, an old converted oil mill now another of the famous tapas restaurants. We had some salmorejo al estilo Cordobes (a Cordoba style gazpacho), espinacas al estilo de Carmona (spinach and chickpeas cooked in olive oil and garlic), some sweet aceitunas de las casa (Sevillian olives with chickpeas) and a big piece of veal entrecot or what the Spanish call “Capea”. By 11:30pm we started walking back to the hotel and started hearing the voices of children and adults coming out. It was finally cooling down.

It was cooling off outside but our hotel room was still hot and stuffy. The bed was small and the one bed pillow was too big. How do the Spanish sleep on these 4’ long sausage pillows? And no, the hotel didn’t have any other types of pillows. We improvised.
The next day we called our next hotel and they were able to check us in a day earlier, so we packed up the car and drove to Cordoba.

We spent a lot of time in Cordoba in 2007 but we never got into the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos (Alcazar of the Christian Kings). Any excuse to revisit Cordoba is worth it.

Alcazar comes from the Arabic word Alqasr, or Palace. Although there are some remains of the Arab palace in the fortifications and the Arab baths, most of the fortress is from the 13th-15th-century Spanish Reconquista.
The Alcazar was one of the primary residences of Isabella and Ferdinand in the 15th century and it was inside of these stonewalls the details of the expedition to the new Americas were put into place.
During the inquisition of 1482, purging Spain of all Arabs and Jews, the Alcazar was converted into interrogation and torture chambers. Boabdil, the last of the Moor Caliphs was imprisoned here in 1483. In 1810, Napoleon’s troops used the fortress as a garrison and then it became a prison again until in the 1950’s it was turned into a tourist monument.
It’s a €4 ticket (free on Fridays) and a great view of the city. There are some old roman mosaic floors that were discovered in 1959 on display, but mostly it’s an hour of walking in some really great old history.

After a bowl of cool salmorejo (Cordoba style gazpacho) and a stroll through the jewelry and leather shops around the old Jewish quarter (shops like these must have been here since the 10th century) we made our pilgrimage to the largest Mosque in Europe (well now converted into a Cathedral). The Mezquita is an enormous hall filled with giant architectural double arches supporting the soaring roof and over 850 columns of jasper, marble, granite and onyx from an old Roman Temple that support the arches. It’s one of those mouth open gaping experiences every time we come into this place.

In the center of the Mezquita is the Church, officially known as the Church of Assumption of the Virgin; actually the Mezquita official name is the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin. It is a beautiful 15th century church but it just looks totally out of place in this peaceful Islamic prayer hall. But then if it weren’t for the conversion of the mosque into the cathedral, the whole building would have probably been torn down during the Inquisition of 1482.

The Catholic reconquistas also left the Mirhab, the original niche of a mosque that point to the direction of Mecca. It’s not used anymore but it’s well lit and part of the history of the building. The Mirhab of the Mezquita has a pretty unusual history as well. Mecca is east-southeast of the Mirhab but the Mirhab actually points due south. The legend is that the builder of the original mosque, Abd-ar-Rahman, the Falcon of Andalus, directed the Mirhab to point towards Damascus instead of Mecca because the Umayyad Arabs (of which he was one) fled to Damascus from Mecca in 750 after political coup. Since Damascus was the new center of their kingdom, the Mirhab pointed to Damascus.

Our next hotel, the Hacienda de San Rafael is about 45 minutes south of Seville, on the outskirts of a small town called Las Cabezas de San Juan (Saint John’s Hills). It’s pretty flat except for the couple of Cabezas off in the distance. It's really hot, there are lots of flies, and the rooms are built with sleeping lofts, which make it seem even hotter. Oh, and did I mention the flies yet? In this part of Spain you really need three hands, one just to shoo away the flies.

But insectos aside, and, even if the air conditioning can’t keep up with the heat; this place is uniquely beautiful and exotically relaxing. I think it’s the perfect place to call home base and take day trips to Jerez and Seville and the Pueblos Blanco, just maybe not in the summertime. I can imagine how ideal this property would be in late September/October. There are three swimming pools, the staff is extremely attentive and we were upgraded to one of the small houses or “casitas”. The little casita has a thatched“chozo” roof with a sleeping loft.

Thatching a roof was common all over Europe over a thousand years ago, but they're pretty rare these days. There is a lot of upkeep and of course, the fire conceren, which is the main reason we don’t see anything older than the 16th century in cities like Paris and London. Let’s face it, when you have a city of thatched roofs, a city can burn up very fast.
We've seen a few thatched roofs in the countryside of England and Austria, but these roofs seem very Yucatan to me. I don’t know if the Spanish got the style from the new world or the new world got the style from the Spanish? It’s definitely an old art form and probably difficult to find a good chozo craftsman. We were told it’s a very restricted permit to build them because the thatching is protected. I’m also pretty sure you can build them in a very dense population.

It’s quiet here, so quiet you can really notice what you don’t here; cars, electricity, people. We are spending our days sitting under a open sided thatched cabana hut, shaded from the sun (but not the heat or the flies). Our breakfast of rolls, juice and coffee is served here. In the mornings it’s cooler outside than in the air conditioned Casita.
During the day we lay by the pool, cool off in the water, write, read, na, swat flies. The temperatures are soaring. It's been about 47°C (117°F). It’s summertime in Spain.

In the late afternoon/early evening we head north to Seville. We’ve been getting there around 6p-7p and the only people outside are the tourists. The temperature near the car park read 45°C (113°F) at 6pm. The Sevillianos know better. The small streets of the Barrio Santa Cruz are deserted.
The car park is next to the Hotel Alfonso XIII, a grand Mudejar style hotel built for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition. It’s now a Starwood property and it’s really impressive. It’s also less than a 10-minute walk to the Catedral, Alcazar, Giralda and the Barrio Santa Cruz.
Most of the remains of the 1929 fair are in the Maria Luisa Park on the other side of the Hotel King Alfonso XIII. When they built this fair, they built it to last a long time and many of the buildings remain throughout the park. Some of them are now museums.
The centerpiece is the fantastical Plaza de Espana. This was the showpiece of the fair. It’s sweeping arched faced has to be over ½ km wide. It’s a mix of art deco-mudejar design of tiled paintings of the provinces of Spain, porticos, towers and tiled bridges crossing over a pond that was being renovated for our visit.
The building is a wonderful backdrop of photographers. We saw them snapping off photos of themselves in front of their favorite tile province. It’s also been the backdrop for some great films. It was the Cairo British Army HQ in David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia” and the Naboo Palace in George Lucas’s Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

Seville was once the wealthiest city in all of Spain between 1504 and 1649 during the “Discovery of the Americas” years, but the plague of 1649 wiped out ½ the city. Seville didn’t really recover till the mid 1800’s. Then came the Ibero-American Exposition in 1929. This Fair was going to put Seville back on the map. It did, but not in the way they planned. The 1929 Exposition was a major flop and almost bankrupted the city. For some bizarre reason, there was also a World’s Fair in Barcelona in 1929. Yes, Barcelona is also in Spain. Now that’s what I call really bad planning.

Since we were here in Seville last year, we decided to explore more of the small streets, take in some window shopping along the Calle Sierpes and check out the tapas bars.
Tapas Bars make perfect sense in this heat. A cold glass of beer and a small taste is much better than a fill up.
In our two days in Seville, we sampled small plates from at least six tapas bars, ranging from pulpo (octopus) a la Gallega to chupa chups (meatballs, cheese and ham), empinades de pollo (fried chicken), something called a Greek salad, Salmorejo (the Cordoba version of gazpacho), pringa (shredded beef and cabbage on toast), batatas com anchovas ao vinagre (potatoes with fresh anchovies and vinegar) to brochetas del pollo marroqui (Moroccan style chicken and onion skewers). Walking back to the parking lot we passed the crowd at the Bodeguita Cassablanca. It was about 10:45pm but this was one of the tapas bars we wanted to go to and here we were and it was open. While standing in line at the bar we met Jose and Vittoria who invited us to sit with them at a table. Two hours later after a lot of laughs, a few beers and a few more tapas, we made it to the parking garage and back down the road to Las Cabezas.
Of all the tapas bars we ate at, the two we recommend are:
Bodeguita Casablanca – Calle Adolfo Rodriguez Jurado 12, across the Avenida de la Constitucion from the Archives Indios next to the Catedral.
Cerveceria La Giralda – on Calle Mateos Gago 2, just off the main square by the Catedral and the Giralda tower.

We love driving through Spain, there are amazing vistas, mountains ranges, white villages, old Moorish castles, old Spanish castles, large old roadside cafes and every once in a while you’re treated to a 50’ tall black bull silhouetted against the sky. There are 89 of these bulls around Spain. The image has kind of become the National Symbol. It originated in 1956 from the Osborne Sherry Company to advertise their Brandy de Jerez. In 1994, the Spanish government finally put an end to the large billboards and most of them came down but after support from some local groups the 89 that remain were saved from destruction.
We did see 50’ tall Tio Pepe logo on the A4 between Cordoba and Ecija. I don’t know if the billboard ban is over, or if this is an exception. Whatever the reason, we love them.

Well, off to Portugal....