SANLUCAR DE BARRAMEDA ON SATURDAY

SATURDAY 16^th/ FEBRUARY 2014.

DAVID AND JANES VISIT;

To start the day on Saturday we had a full Spanish/Continental Breakfast with cold meats, chorizo, and fresh fruits, Yoghurt Magdelanas, toast, honey, coffee and tea and to start freshly squeezed local Orange juice – chilled !  It was time to set off for Sanlucar de Barrameda through the mountains to Jerez and then cut across; we parked the hire car in a small square under the two very tall trees as you can see – easy to find later!

We first went into the center of the town, which was already very busy as it turned out to be the Carnaval Day with the parade later in the evening; I first took the folks to the see the best Fish, Meat, Fruit and Vegetable Market in Andalucia by far! The atmosphere is electric, very loud and bustling with people, we stopped for a very good Café Espresso at the market bar as you can see in the pictures below; we even found the fresh, live Camorenes so we realized that they were in season – they are cooked, live in the batter in a dry, hot pan – served crisp. We walked down to the main square and went into Casa Balbino which is the very busy and best Tapas Bar in Sanlucar; I ordered a bottle of Vino Rosado and a plate of ‘ Tortillitas Camorones’ from the barman, you order is chalked up, by price on the Marble counter and it is self service at all the tables inside and out so you have to wait and fight for your order! Pay later! They are very tasty, crisp and warm as you can see in the pictures below, in the tray they are a mass of rigiling very, very small shrimp like creatures!

We then headed past one of the thirteen church’s in Sanlucar which were all open for the Carnaval Day; next on our port of calls was the famous ‘Tarteneros Hotel’ which is very old and rather special – sadly it was still closed as it was on our last visit! We headed down towards the Plaza Maritimo to go for our seafood lunch at what was Mano’s mum’s favourite and local restaurant; we ate there last time so we were looking forward to taking the folks – oh dear it was closed for staff holidays for six weeks! We had to turn around and head back into the center of the town through the crowds; David had spotted the ‘Restaurante Jamones de Montanera’which is located in an old grand house with lots of small rooms full with family Carnaval business. It turned our to be a meat lovers paradise! As you can see in the pictures below we gorged ourselves on an over kill of meat! I never thought that we would be eating meat in Sanlucar de Barrameda,the seafood capital of Andalucia but when in Rome !! David and Jane had the ‘ Parrilladas’ de Cochinillo,Cordero,Terera de la Janda,Ibericos y muchas mas – as it said on the menu! I had a large ‘Chunk’ of cured Beef cooked on a chargrill and finished on a very hot stone plate and Brenda had a rather nice Steak au Poirve – all served with fresh chips !! A fine Rioja was called for to help wash down our meal! We decided not to go on to Chipiona and Puerto de Sta.Maria and headed home to have a nice relaxing rest with some nibbles in the evening with some drinks to wind down after a “Helluva “ day.

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