It was my idea to go on a river sightseeing trip. Just thought it was fair to take the blame up front…

We began today with breakfast at Pan Y Pui again. We do become creatures of habit wherever we are. I think we take comfort in routine and routinely eating croissants and drinking fresh orange juice is certainly comforting. We spent some time back at the apartment trying to time our floating excursion in with lunch. You should all realise by now that lunch takes precedence.

However, we bought tickets (after the ticket office had assisted the credit card machine to work by giving it a sound bang) and waited in the embarkation area. That’s some plastic patio seats on the dockside to you. The cruiser docked and the tourists flocked on board, all nine of us. There were more plastic seats and we fought our way to the front of the upper deck.

We moved off from shore and quickly realised two things. The commentary was pre recorded in five languages and except for the bridges, our view of what was being described was almost wholly hidden by trees. Don’t be mistaken, we really enjoyed the trip, though the girl who read the descriptions in English was either bored out of her skull or on a high dose of Valium at the time of recording.

The sun was shining and although there was a cool breeze it was very pleasant. The three Italian girls who were sat next to us obviously thought conditions were sub Arctic though. Once they had finished their salads and doorstep ciabattas, they decamped to the lower deck, leaving us, a French man and woman and another English couple who sat stoically at the prow with us.

Back on shore we sought out lunch and as planned turned up at Bartolomea, where we’d had a meal last year. They were super busy but found us a table and we ordered some tapas. This restaurant produces slightly more gastronomic tapas and they were certainly of very high quality. We managed to leave room for ‘postres’ or dessert too…

Going back to the apartment, we wound our way through the small streets to the Avenida De La Constitution, which we crossed, avoiding horse drawn carriages and trams (though the trams are electric), then back here.

Tomorrow we are booked on an evening cookery course, over the river in the market in Triana…we won’t be taking a cruise to get there though..