Sevilla

Driving away from Medina Azaharah, we got into another argument with Sattie. "In 200 metres, turn left", so we did. There was a big sign ahead, which gave the impression, in no uncertain terms, Seville: this way. Cool, we thought. "In 200 metres, do a u-turn", said Sattie. "No!" I shouted. "It's this way!" "In 60 metres, do a u-turn" as we passed yet another sign saying Seville: straight ahead. "Do a u-turn!" "Oh shut up, Sattie, you don't know what you're talking about."

Sattie then sulked in silence for 131km. We approached Seville.

Now this is the scary part: you don't want to upset your satellite navigation system when you're in a strange city. It was "turn left this", "turn right that" as we drove up and down increasingly narrow streets trying to find our hotel. At one point (we were looking for our hotel in the centre of the Jewish Quarter (again) which is a series of narrow alleyways), the road was so narrow and the turn so tight that we had to drive the wrong way up a (wider) one-way street in order to execute a multi-point turn, then drive up the street. Eventually, with the help of a very nice man at The British Institute, we got directions from a more reliable witness, and reached the Hotel rey Alfonso X.

So yes, our hotel is smack in the middle of the Jewish Quarter. This is handy, as this is where all the bars and restaurants are (our last hotel in Cordoba was a massive 5 minutes' walk outside the Jewish Quarter, with horrendous consequences). Once we'd checked in, we went for a walk to grab a well-deserved cerveza and some tapas, as we'd not had anything since breakfast. Then after a short siesta, we set out to explore the local area and to get our bearings. On the back of our map was a list of restaurants, so we headed desultorily down towards one of these, Restaurant Robles, for some dinner.