Spain - tapas extravangza and a wild wedding!

Continuing my gastro tour of Europe, we flew to Spain a fortnight ago for a friend's wedding. It was so good, and we partied so hard that it's taken nearly a fortnight for me to get back to normal and start blogging.

We landed in Seville and saw the (very impressive) cathedral before heading off into the blazing sunshine on a hunt for tapas. Because the heat had addled our brains, we couldn't find Las Teresas, the tapas bar we wanted to eat at,  so made the foolish error of eating in the main tourist area - on the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes, at a tapas bar called El Giradillo. Big mistake. The food was OK-ish (not good enough in a city renowned for its tapas), but the service was dreadful. We left having paid the (incorrect) bill and went exploring to see if we could better our first Sevillian tapas experience.

And we did. We found the beautiful Plaza de la Alianza, and within in the tapas bar that (I think) was called the Cafe Alianza. The first of several rounds of tinto de verano was ordered - 'safer' than sangria as it doesn't contain brandy - and we asked for jamon, boqurones and were recommended the pigs cheek by the waitress. All were fabulous and a very pleasant hour was spent drinking in the pleasant surroundings, happily munching on tapas, knocking back the tinto de verano and saying hi to the passing priests.

Tim showing off the tinto di verano and jamon.

Jamon

Pigs cheek



Boquerones

 Then we headed off to Arcos de la Frontera more more eating and drinking and a pre-wedding fiesta. On Friday night in the village of Arcos, the locals in conjunction with the church organise a procession of the Virgin Mary, the town's patron saint. All the wedding guests holed up in a tapas bar to watch the procession go past.

The statue is borne along by 30 young men.



And here she is close up.

 During the fiesta, we drank an awful lot of this:

Tinto de verano

And gorged ourselves on plenty of this:

Manchego cheese, prawns, jamon, chorizo.

And then the day of the wedding arrived and the bride and groom both looked utterly gorgeous:

Mr and Mrs Argent

As did several of the guests, particularly Tim in his beautiful pistachio trousers (with me):

We were fed amazingly well on a variety of tapas, which I was too busy getting stuck into to photograph, but I did manage to take some pictures of the wedding dinner:

Beautiful place sitting and liking the four wine glasses!

The evening dinner took place in an olive grove, which was simply beautiful:

And the food was wonderful:

Salmorejo - like gazpacho, but better.



More pork!



Lemon tart pie with summer fruits.

Following dinner we partied long and hard into the night, culminating in a 5am skinny dip. Fortunately, there are no photos of this - none that I'd care to share anyway!

So, thank you to Mr and Mrs Argent for inviting us to their wonderful wedding. You guys know how to throw one hell of a party.