Estepa!

Up bright and early with a 4.00am start - urggghhh!  Showered, up and out for 5.00am, with the Sav Nav pointing in the direction of East Midlands Airport.  The flight was great, and passed really quickly, the only thing of note was whilst at EMA, I found myself heading up an escalator which I thought would take us to passport control.  (It didn't it went exclusively to Burger King).  When I realised that nobody was following me, I did a u-turn and jumped, scrambled, stumbled back down as the escalator was trying to carry me up.  I disembarked trying to look non-chalant and cool, and like, you know, doesn't everbody do stuff like that all the time, but with the other 3 family member rolling on the floor - I'd blown it.

We landed at Seville Airport around 11.30am local time, and went to find out where to pick up our hire car from.  The company consisted of a campe van with side roof open operating from one of the car parks.  An hour later we picked up the keys and found our Kia and headed off in pursuit of the A-92 which would take us to Estepa.

Once we found the main road the drive was easy - easier for me as I was in the front passenger seat - but the road was fairly a quiet and it was literally following it for an hour until we hit Estepa.  We did drive around the town once, twice, oh go on then I will admit to three times, before we sussed out the one-way system and how to actually get to the plaza where we were staying.

Plaza Del Aire was finally located and our agents, Hazel and Kevin who lived over the road, contacted.  They were quite a gregarious couple who used to live in Portsmouth but had settled in Spain some 7 years ago.  As well as looking after a couple of holiday lets in the town, Hazel translates menus in the local bars and cafes and is also an artist.

Plaza Del Aire - our apartment is on the right

To say our house was gorgeous is an understatement. Once inside it was laid out similar to a terrace house would be here in the UK, with the front door opening straight into the living room, which in turn led to an open plan kitchen. Bedrooms were on the 2nd Floor and the 3rd floor had a 2nd shower and opened onto a beautifully tiled roof terrace, complete with hot tub.  Hazel and Kevin spent a good half hour showing us around and giving us loads of local tips, where to eat, where NOT to eat, and the friendliest bars etc. They also gave us a quick weather report:  very windy for the next 2 days (Plaza Del Aire aptly named), a bit of rain on Tuesday but sun, sun, sun the rest of the way. Yippee!

Gorgeous kitchen - and asparagus!

Whilst talking to Hazel we met some old local ladies who had been off picking some mountain asparagus.  Hazel and I went half on a generous handful, which I was really looking forward to eating with scrambled eggs for breakfast the next morning.  I was feeling all local and with it, but not so much when got around to cooking the asparagus -which turned out to be completely inedible. Unless you had the incisors of a horse. Which I don't.

Beautiful sun terrace (but very windy!!)

 
Quick change into the bikini and a tongue in cheek photo opportunity in the jaccuzi with bottle of plonk labelled up for the Doubev lads back home. (Cheap Cava from the local supermarket - at 1.50 Euro a bottle, I ended up getting through a few!)

Doubev!

I could very easily get used to this!