With a late Easter break, by the time it finally arrived we felt like we fully deserved our holiday! Working in Spain, Easter is great, with a massive ten day holiday! We'd planned to visit friends and travel to different cities and separate that with a few days rest by the sea.
We started our trip in Seville, to see the Easter parades there and visit Maria who we met at a summer camp in England the year before. We'd heard a lot about them but weren't prepared for the solemn silence that accompanied them. Only once, during one of the night parades was it 'disturbed', when everybody stopped their slow, intermittent advance towards the church while someone hidden on a balcony sang a sad lament. It was very touching.
Other memorable things during the holiday was our mixed fried fish platter in a restaurant near the bull-ring with all the brave bull heads on the wall. Also, Maria took us to a flamenco show in a hut out of the back of a pub, which had only a corrugated iron roof, but was one of the best shows that we've seen.
She also took us to a typical Andalucian tea house, and the next day we were invited to her house for afternoon drinks. this was another great day for us, as when her family heard that Vendy liked dancing, her dad found out his guitar and started playing and singing while all the women of the house were teaching vendy the 'Sevillanas' moves! We still have the videos to remind us of this extraordinary afternoon.
We also took a day trip to Cordoba on the fast train, it wasn't a long journey and was well worth the effort - Cordoba, is still one of my favourite places in Spain.
After all this sightseeing we went to Huelva on the way to El Rompido, a fishing village where we would spend our 3 days by the sea.
Huelva wasn't very nice, a bit industrial and we didnt stay long - I think we walked around the centre for 2 hours and decided to move! After Seville, it certainly wasnt very interesting!
The days in El Rompido passed quite uneventfully, going jogging, laying on the beach and eating tapas.
Then the last leg of the journey was to Cadiz, which is another lovely place and here we stayed with Louisa and her work colleagues. We had a couple of days to explore the town and had a great night out (I hadnt seen her for about 2 years) as well as enjoying some more nice seafood and tapas with Louisa. On the last day we had nice weather and spent the afternoon on the beach by Louisa's house and then early the next morning it was on the train to Madrid, and then on to Pamplona and back to work.
