West Coast of Western Europe Pt 3

cont'd from West Coast of Western Europe Pt 2

4th stop: Cordoba

We arrived at Cordoba by bus and spent a day in this town south of Granada.

The first impression was good as the tourist information guy was friendly and helpful. But it started to go downhill when we reached the hostel, as we were told there wasn’t a 3 bedded-room for us. The receptionist said the only option was to move us to a 6 bedded-room.

Of course we rioted! Because a) that’s not what we wanted and b) we made this booking months ago, so why could they not have told us before hand so that we could make prior arrangements before it’s too late? It was clear that they knew about the unavailable 3 bedded-room because she (foolishly, I’d say), showed us what her colleagues wrote on their copy of the booking confirmation sheet.

We didn’t settle for the 6 bedded-room, obviously. At one point she even said to us, “Look, I’m trying to solve a problem for you, ok? So take it easy.” which I thought was classic. A) You never tell a customer what to do and b) the customer is always right!

After some negotiations, she said the only other option left was to let us have a 3 bedded-room of which the lock was faulty. We didn’t have much of a choice then but to grudgingly take the room. We consoled ourselves that it was just for una noche, so (we tried to) chill.

We went to the Mezquitta in the afternoon, which is a unique piece of architecture that reflects the fusion of Islamic and Christian influences, attributed to the fact that it was a mosque - once used as a church - from the 12th-16th century.



A visit to the Alvazar de los Reyes Cristianos overwhelmed us with its lush gardens and impressive fountains, not forgetting the lebat clementine trees too!


Not very keen on tapas and paella (after 4 days in Spain), I was eager to try local Cordoban food. Unlike the Alpujarran cuisine, it is less meat-based. And soups form a big part of their cuisine too. But cold ones though, to my dismay. We were lucky to find one shopkeeper who spoke modest English, and it was he who introduced us to salmorejo, flamenquin and gazpacho, which is a mish-mash of stuff in soup. I think the best was calamares fritos - yummy fried squid!

5th stop: Sevilla

As I mentioned before, not many speak English in Spain (or at least those we encountered). The exception being the people in Barcelona (for obvious reasons). Because of that, we relied heavily on sign language and I’m sure the girls wouldn’t forget the incident at the bus station where we bought our tickets to Sevilla, our next stop.

We were trying to buy tickets for tres (our most-used Spanish word) when he asked us for the departure time. The furthest I could count in Spanish was to 5, and when I put 10 fingers up to signify 10 o’clock, he pointed to 10pm. Not wanting to travel that late, we asked if there were tickets for earlier buses. But not being able to convey that in Spanish resulted in me doing my “hand sweeping up” movement, which had all of us in stitches!

Oh, so you think it was fun eh, using sign language. Well, a little, but not when things get lost in translation.

After we bought our tickets, we asked the counter guy - in the poorest Spanish you can ever imagine - “Arrivio estacion de autobus como *and then did a little hand shaking motion coz we didn’t know how to say hour in Spanish*". We wanted that to mean (literally translated into Enlgish) "arriving at bus station what time?”

And the guy responded with a 2.

Ah, 2 o’clock, we thought.

We went on the bus expecting a 4-hour bus ride. The three of us dozed off at some point and it wasn’t until I heard Torn on the radio that I woke up.

Finally, an English song :)

I opened my eyes and checked the time. Oh, 11.45. Right, another 2 hours. I was prepared to go back to sleep again when the words “Hotel Sevilla” caught my eye.

Sevilla?

Am I dreaming?

I alerted the girls.

“But we’re not due to reach till 2, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s what he motioned”, the girls reassured me.

"But I really saw the word Sevilla lar, so what’s going on?"

It wasn’t until later that we realized the 2 he motioned was meant to signify two hours, and not REACHING the bus station at 2pm.

See what I mean?

It was a good thing Sevilla was the final stop anyway, so it didn’t make a difference. Otherwise we would have been transported elsewhere and the problem then would be “we missed our stop senor, please get us back there!”

It was overcast when we reached Sevilla that afternoon. Hmm, this fussy pot wasn’t liking it already. And then we had a problem finding the hotel because the only instructions given were “200m from the bus station”. And like J said, “do they expect us to walk in a circumference of 200m and see if we spot anywhere that says Hotel Loudres?”

And it really didn’t help that Sevilla has 2 bus stations.

As serendipity would have it, we arrived at the other bus station, not the one that was 200m away. So you can imagine the walking we did prior to locating our hostel. No point turning to TI for help too because it was a Sunday and none of them were open.

Eventually we found the place, thanks to some bar owner who had a comprehensive A-Z of Sevilla. We checked in to what was the best accommodation of our trip so far.

Later in the afternoon, we checked out the Cathedral, which was absolutely magnificent and walked along the river bank to the other side of town. The weather picked up tremendously the following day, so much so we stripped off our winter jackets by mid afternoon! And this was supposed to be the winter season. I take back all the bad stuff I said about Sevilla earlier!


We then walked around the Alcazar (couldn’t go in coz it was closed) and the Old Jewish Quarter. We went into some souvenir shops and like a déjà vu in movies, there was a desperado, in cool shades, brown hat, lank black hair, strumming his guitar, itching to lavish his attention on us 3 guapos. He even blew Adeline a kiss!

Unfortunately it was that Adeline, not this one. I was so very jealous!

To be continued...