day 7: zahara de los atunes.

You can probably choose whether to be charmed or infuriated by the unpredictability of Spanish opening hours in the heat of the summer. At least I feel like I was able to choose, and I chose "charmed". In 1.5 days in Sevilla, our first attempt at Bodeguita Romero found them closed, though that's probably more TripAdvisor's fault than anything, or my fault for believing TripAdvisor.

The next day we kind of based our afternoon's long, meandering path through the 42ºC/106ºF city around ending up at Dulcería Manu Jara in the early evening since they were "open all day Saturday". We got there by 19:00, feet complaining a bit; unfortunately the sign in the window said they'd closed at 15:00.

OK, OK. Only slightly dejected, we limped sweatily back over the bridge from Triana to the city center for dinner at La Azotea, a bit later than we expected, 20:45 or so, hopefully they wouldn't be too crowded. Ummmmm, no, they weren't crowded at all, because their doors weren't open and the lights weren't on.

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So a couple of days later on Wednesday when we went to Zahara de los Atunes and found El Refugio (above), our chosen lunch spot, to be "closed Wednesdays", we just said oh ha ha ha Spain and went down the beach to a random beach restaurant called Cerro Currita. It was 41ºC/105ºF, really too hot for a Death Mope.

Cerro Currita is one of those beachside restaurants that's overpriced but not really bad in any way. Luckily, "overpriced" in southern Spain is still underpriced everywhere else. Plus their English menu was funnier than average, I really meant to take pictures or notes but forgot both. Below: "tomato salad", very vegetarian friendly except for the pile of tuna in the center; boquerones, fried fresh anchovies; atún de la zona, "Tuna from The Zone". It was all good in the way eating fresh local seafood by the sea is good, but yeah the cooking was not especially inspired. .

And after that, the Zahara beach itself was one of the best beaches for swimming I've ever been to, with pleasantly unpredictable, threatening-but-manageable waves, a flat sandy sea floor, and water that was nearly swimming pool turquoise. Remind me to tell you about the American tourist.