Trayle

Day 3 Saturday October 7th 2006

After another restless night we got up pretty early and moved to hostal Toledo in de Barrio de Santa Cruz.  After dropping of the luggage we went to find a nice place to have breakfast and wait for Brigitte and Geert (yet another one). After they arrived we went for a stroll through Santa Cruz towards the bullring but it wasn't open yet so we took a walk north along the river where they have some cleverly constructed bridges and back through the Barrio Macarena which took about 2 hours. All the walking had made us hungry and since Brigitte and Geert did not have breakfast we went looking for a tapas bar (yes again). We made the mistake of going to one of the main squares and sat down on a terrace to find out that it was ridiculously expensive so we just had a drink and went to find a nice cosy place in a hurry since it was a quarter to 4. In Spain all the bars and restaurants stop serving food/lunch at 4 o'clock. Thank god we found "Entre Carceles" just in time because we had some of the best tapas ever, and believe me, we've had some. Especially the courgette stuffed with cod and topped with melted cheese and forrest fruit salsa still makes my mouth water writing it down.

After this gourmet feast we went back to the bullring since it was supposed to be open. There is a 20 minute tour (4 Euro pp) through the bullring with a guide that speaks Spanish and English. Even if you don't approve of bull fighting you should know something about this tradition that lives in the heart of the majority of the Spanish people. The bull fight stadium of Sevilla is one of the biggest and probably the oldest in Spain. Bullfighting takes place from half April until half October.

After our visit to the bullring we went back to the hotel to freshen up. We made reservations at Mesón del Moro, one of the Italian restaurants of a chain called San Marco situated in al old Moorish bathhouse were we were going to celebrate Patricia's an my birthday.  When we got to the restaurant  they placed us in the new part upstairs which was dissapointing but  after negotiating a bit with the waiter they got us a nice table for 6 people downstairs (see picture all the way in the back but it looks a lot nicer in real life) where the actual baths used to be. They have pizza's and pasta's as well as nice starters, fish and meat dishes. The salmon carpaccio and the solomillo (sirloin) were fantastic as well as all the deserts. After dinner we had some drinks in a bar in the Santa Cruz area and went back to the hostal to finally get a good nights rests.