Street

The Sevilla backblips start here.

A rare attempt at from-the-hip photography. Last day in Seville today; we decided to give ourselves an extra day by booking a train at 5 p.m. Monday wasn't a good day to choose though, because almost all museums and galleries are closed. Hence we missed the opportunity to visit the camera obscura. We walked around Macarena to see what turned out to be a rather underwhelming bit of city wall. Then we headed back into the centre of town to witness an even more underwhelming bit of modern dance, part of Seville's contemporary dance festival.

We soon gave up on that in favour of lunch at Pasajes, a tapas place in Santa Cruz that we'd visited last time we were in Seville. And then we visited the Torre de Oro (extra) which turned out to be a) open and b) free on Mondays -- but not that interesting. With a little time to kill we ended the afternoon on the roof terrace of the Corte Ingles for a ridiculously expensive drink. Then back to the flat to pick up our luggage and say goodbye to Aldara and Natalia (excellent hosts whom I highly recommend).

At the station S bought the main Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia, which appears in both Spanish and Catalan editions. It provided a refreshing corrective to the anti-Catalan rants in the Andalusian newspapers. Not that I'm a fan of Catalan nationalism, but the loathing of Catalans that transpires in the opinion pieces in these quite took us aback (can be summarised as "Lock them up!"). There's criticism of Puigdemont and co in Catalan papers too (especially following the ludicrous flight to Brussels), but it's reasonable and well argued.

On that topic, while we're used to seeing senyeras (Catalan flags) everywhere in Catalonia, the Spanish flags draped from numerous balconies in Andalusia are new and unwelcome. During our strolls in Seville today I noticed a bit of graffiti which read "All your flags are made in China", which made me smile, and that's what I think when I see them now.

The train was late, causing us to dash frantically across the station in Malaga to catch our bus, but that was late too, so we got safely back to Almuñecar at about 10:30. Cup of tea and bed.