Sunday – 27 September, 2015

Today is Day 11 of the formal tour, It starts in Seville while we are still in Barcelona. We are up relatively early and go out to a local breakfast place.

So, we head out to the central train station to catch our express to Seville. We were going to take the Metro to the main station but when I got to the Metro station and saw all the taxis outside, I decided it was best to just take a taxi. The ride was easy and we had time for drinks at the cafe there.

JV goes across to a shop and we come close to missing our train because of all the time she spent there. However, we do get onto the train and are off shortly. Interestingly, the train to Seville and the train to Malaga are joined together at the start of the journey.

We were in the first class cabin although it did not seem that special. There was no laptop power, USB or Internet access. However, what did happen is they brought us a full lunch that wasn’t too bad.

The train journey takes precisely 2 1/2 hours as advertised. As we get off, we notice how warm it is. After Melbourne’s cold winter it was welcome. We take a taxi to our Hotel, the Gran Melia Colon. We check in and the room is quite nice.

We meet the tour group at the Hotel bar at 6:30. The people are all “new” – not on any of our previous tours, except Frank Camorra of course. However, I knew one of the couples well – Alan and Kerrie Oster – from an earlier period of my life. It was good to see them.

The group has a Cava at the bar and then heads out to some Tapas bars / restaurants for dinner.

We see an interesting site of a “girl” on a hammock:

Here are some of the dishes that we had”

So it was the end of the night. A rather stunning start and a portent of the days to come. Sorry for fallling behind, again – maybe I will catch-up later.