Road trip to Linares, attending a 300 year old Feria and Botellion!

It feels so weird writing about this so long after it happened. However writing this has brought back so many good memories from an important time in my life.

After saying many goodbyes to the Spaniards and Anglos, myself, Delfa, Giselle, Bev and Max headed to El Corte' Ingles to find a rental car to take us to Linares! This was easier said than done but eventually we dropped off Max and Delfa and were making our way South towards Andalucia, In an Audi no less!

We decided that It was probably best that Giselle drove the car, mainly because myself and Bev are used to driving on the Left and would probably crash....

It was a long drive down but looking at the beautiful sunset helped pass the time. We even stopped off at a few roadside cafe's, most of which sold a scarily large selection of knives!

Eventually we arrived at the beautiful hotel in Linares. We all felt very tired after a full day of travelling so we all swiftly fell asleep.

The next morning we got ready and found a cute little cafe' to have breakfast and do some people watching. We then walked around the beautiful quaint city, did some window shopping (and pretended to be flamanco dancers in El Corte Ingles!) and eventually settled in a streetside bar to sample some local tapas and cerveza!

We them made our way back to the hotel where we were suprised to see that Sergio, one of the friends that we made in Candeleda had been looking for us! We called them back and met up with all of the Linares crew to experience Linares, Spanish style!

We met up with Sergio, Monica, Sandra and Maria Jos'e and they took us for a little tour of Linares, sampling local alcohol and tapas on the way! Highlights included the bullring and beautiful architecture.

 After this we headed to the 300 year old feria! There were scores of tents, each one had different types of music being played and alcohol being served. Even though it was only the afternoon the party was in full swing! We all had a bit of a dance and drank stwawberry mojitos! I also realised that I was probably the tallest girl in the whole of the tent, the Spanish girls (and my two lovely travelling companions) are so petite!

We then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the night time celebrations, stopping off at the hotel pool on the way.

In the evening we headed for a local tapas place where every man in there looked like my Dad! (I must have some Spanish heritage from some point) There we dined on 5 tapas and 1Litre VASE of beer! And there's me thinking that the Spanish only drank small Canas of beer! We got all of this for the princely sum of 6 Euros each. Andalucia is a lot cheaper than England.

                                          Heaven....
After lining our stomachs we went to watch the fireworks at the Feria which was pretty magical. We then went to the park to practice Botellion (drinking in the street) which is a Spanish tradition of drinking in the street. It was worlds away from how the UK practice botellion. Instead of cider bottles and beer cans like people in the UK they had plastic glasses and ice cubes to accompany Rum and coke!

After bidding our Spanish friends a final 'Adios' we stopped off to look at some market stalls and then headed back to the hotel. As we were walking back a man kept shouting 'peli rojo' at me which meand 'red hair'. My red hair certainly ensured that I stood out! We then fell straight to sleep only to wake up the next day and start another road trip, to Valencia...

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