30 years!

Today is our 30th wedding anniversary! The raison d’etre for this little trip away - you never know what is around the corner and if we will be lucky enough to celebrate our 40th, so it was important to celebrate this anniversary - mind you, after the taxi drive to the restaurant for dinner last night I didn’t think we would reach our 30th anniversary, the taxi driver was a reckless maniac and I had to close my eyes for most of the white knuckle  journey. 

We had a hurried breakfast this morning as we had booked tickets for the 9.30am train to Córdoba and we had to get across town to the station. It was about a 40 minute journey in a beautifully clean and air conditioned train, how tourists must shudder when they travel in our hot and sweaty British tubes and trains in summer. 

We wandered around the walled city, visiting the Jewish quarter, although we could not visit the synagogue as it is closed on a Monday. It was extremely hot, and by the time our guided tour to the Mesquita started at 1pm I was flagging. The Mesquita is the mosque-cathedral and one of the architectural highlights of Spain.  It is a combination of an Islamic architecture mosque with Christian chapels within, most unusual and extraordinary. For example the minaret was cladded and bells were then added to convert it to a Christian bell tower. The inside of the mesquita was airless as there are no windows and I was struggling in the heat. 

I decided to get a photo of us for our anniversary. I found a bin on which I placed my camera and used the self timer option to get this photo. Unfortunately there were no such useful supports in better locations to get a photo of us, so this one with an indifferent background will have to do!

After the tour we walked around a bit and then decided to get an earlier train than we had booked back the Seville as it was just too hot. Once we got back to Seville we freshened up at the hotel before going back out again to buy a few things, I wanted to buy some nougat to take home - it is quite famous in this area and there are shops selling all types of nougat in different flavours and styles. I thought I would see Seville marmalade being sold everywhere and of course I did not as I think marmalade is very much a British thing. 

We had the most wonderful anniversary dinner tonight at a restaurant sitting outside overlooking the river. The concierge struggled to find us a special place for our anniversary meal as many restaurants are closed on a Monday or if open, were fully booked. This restaurant (Le Casa de Maria) was superb and we enjoyed a paella watching the sun set and then the lights came on, reflecting on the river, it was quite magical.

We leave tomorrow morning to return home again - it has been a wonderful break and Seville has just shot to number one of my favourite European cities...(okay, Rome, Lisbon, Paris.... I have not forgotten you from my list!)