A large square in Gibraltar. Notice the rock. Well you can't miss it really :p
Woke up, not having really slept enough. We had a nice English breakfast and toast with jam/marmalade. The only thing missing was an egg because "the grill was not working". [Editor's note : It is only while typing this travel diary up, 3 years later, that I wonder why we didn't ask to have them fried ...]
After Ian had a shave, we left. We again went up and down the main street looking for souvenirs; lots of shops were selling tacky things but then that's what a souvenir often is! After buying some things we took the walk back to La Linea. It was a pretty grey day, and we thought we felt a few drops of rain. Went past the customs again, which basically consisted of two permanent portakabins on either side of the road, with a roof over the road. There seemed to be some building work going on around the border area, we weren't quite sure what.
We got the bus to the nearby village of San Roque at 11:15am, from where we were due to pick up a train. We arrived in the town at 11:45am, and once again discovered it's bigger than we thought it would be. Upon asking a kiosk vendor where the rail station was, we were informed that it was "cinque kilometres". This was not good as we had a train to catch in 17 minutes; we had to catch a taxi. 900 ptas and 10 minutes later we were at the railway station, crowded by American and English tourists who we tried to avoid.
It was difficult to sleep on the train, and we did pass through some beautiful landscape. We had to change at the small town of Bobadilla, and caught the onward train to Cordoba. Most of the tourists were going to Malaga. We arrived in Cordoba with 9 hours to kill before the night train to Madrid. The train station we thought was quite sleek and modern, and was located on the North side of the city. We *finally* managed to book our tickets for travel out of Madrid, it turned out that 2nd class was indeed full but we could get a couchette.
It was a hot day, about 32C, and after securing our backpacks in some lockers on the concourse, we walked round in the heat, map in hand. It was quite a nice town, very obviously religious (with churches etc). After a little walk we tried to find something to eat. Ian wanted to go to a tapas bar and Laure wanted fries, but in the end we settled on a baguette and pizza slice in a backstreet cafe. We ambled across the two bridges over the Guadalquivir River, the second one we went over in a very strong wind and could just about see where we were going! We actually got lost at some point, we walked off the map and didn't know where we were going, but fortunately it was still light and we still had time to get back on keel. Cordoba, like Sevilla and Almeria, seemed to have a severe traffic problem, and roads with narrow pavements didn't help. It is true that Cordoba is an old city and it is not designed for cars, and it showed.
While walking round we saw a couple of squares with music and people practising dancing. Upon enquiring we discovered it was some kind of neighbourhood festival that was just starting, and was due to last until 13 May.
By now it was getting dark; we headed back into the centre of the city and looked for a restaurant. We eventually found a larger cafe that looked interesting. We had some difficulty communicating our order (maybe we ought to learn Spanish?!), but everything was OK in the end. We started with noodle soup with a bit of meat and egg, then Ian had calamari in batter with mayonnaise, and bits of squid's tentacles, while Laure had "carne con tomate". Laure thought the meat in question might have been veal. She also found the wine horrible, and finished off with a yoghurt.
We slowly walked back to the station. When we got there we noticed some sort of fair was going on opposite it, so we went to have a little look. Turns out it was some sort of wine fair, but you needed a ticket to get in so that ruled that one out. We did buy some sweets from a stallholder just outside the entrance though. Nothing was open in the train station; we had to go to the bus station over the road to buy a bottle of water.
We saw the AVE high-speed train pass through the station, very flash TGV-esque white train. At around 2am our train arrived. There was a bit of a muddle with regard to seat numbers; ours were coach 51, seats 84c and 86v. There were compartment numbers from 8-11, so we assumed we were in compartment 8, but people were sleeping there and lying over all the seats. Compartment 11 was empty so we sat there instead. When the ticket controller arrived, Ian noticed that only one person had booked into this compartment, and they hadn't turned up. We sat and lay down to try to grab some sleep.