Spain 2016 - Huelva Hell and a lovely lunch.

We have been considering how to visit Granada as I would love to see Alhambra again. However I remember the first time George and I went (when we stayed overnight) that driving in the city was very difficult, one way streets and impatient drivers. The second time, when we went with Chris we drove directly to Alhambra and didn't go into the city. We are far enough away that we would have to stay overnight so we are looking into taking a train. For the same reasons we are considering taking a train to Seville. So today we drove to Huelva to find the train station and get a schedule.
I hate driving in cities (even Toronto which I am relatively familiar with). I hate, even more, driving in cities where I only half understand the traffic signs, there seem to be no street names anywhere and we have only a simplified map out of a 10 year old guidebook to go by. However, with Dad "map reading" we found a tourist office and discovered we were only a block from the train station. We learned a number of things; there is no long term parking at the train station, there is no printed timetable (but clerks at both the tourist office and the train station hand wrote out the train schedule for me) and the train to Seville leaves at either 7am (too early) or 3pm (too late). Next we will look into the bus.
While we were in Huelva, Dad wanted to find Las Marismas de Odiel and after a knitting pattern drive over a bridge, 2 roundabouts, under the previous road etc we found the entrance to the marshes that are right across the River Odiel from Huelva.

We drove through an area of flat, sunken fields that are flooded with seawater, evaporated and yield mountains of sea salt.

I took the first exit and ended up in a parking lot of a building that was obviously not the visitors centre but there were glass cages with some birds and the signage indicated that it was a rehabilitation centre for injured birds.

The first cage had a hawk or harrier in it but the reflection of the glass was too much. In the next this beautiful horned owl.

The third had 2 spoonbills.

We drove out and into the next road on the left and found the visitor centre. Went to the bathromm, got a map and vowed to come back, with a picnic and spend the day. They have walking trails and blinds, a movie and displays.

This board was in Spanish but the heading translates to Fish Eagle. The pictures looked like an Osprey.

We continued along the coast back towards Ayamonte. It was now 2pm and we were starving but had decided to stop for lunch where we had coffee a couple of days ago, El Rompido. We sat at the same restaurant, inside this time as it was cool, grey, windy and felt like rain.

I told Christine I would post a picture of what I was looking at while talking to her, on her commute. Time change is sort of weird, I'm sitting down for a late lunch and she is on her way to work.

Mum and Dad shared a Prawn Risotto. Prawns, octopus and this huge lagostina.

I had asked Dad to order me the squid, which he did from the menu using the Spanish word given. There were shells on some of the pieces of seafood and when I asked the waiter he confessed that the terms for cuttlefish and squid had been reversed on the menu. It was delicious anyway, fried, over a bed of buttery potatoes.

Mum shrimp wrestling (we have decided it should be an Olympic sport, along with clingwrap wrestling which she would lose miserable at and I find strangely amusing)

A glass of wine each, bread and olives while we waited (it takes 20 minutes to make a risotto from scratch), coffee after and Mum and I had flan for dessert. It was our most extravagant meal yet and we decided that a light salad was all we would need for supper.