Andalucia Day 18 Medina-Sidonia

Time to move. We dust down the tent and everything else from its layer of brown dust and pack everything up getting pretty dirty ourselves in the process. Our destination is El Puerto de santa María, but first we go to Medina-Sindonia to spend the morning. Medina is theoretically another pueblo blanco, but in practice is more laid back and getting on with its own business without being interested in tourists than Vejer.

It's also a  bit less smart, with a lot of white but also buildings, such as the church, of old weather encrusted stone, which gives it a lost-in-time relaxed atmosphere and we like it very much.

There's a charity run going on when we arrive so the village is full of people with bright blue t-shirts running or walking or just hanging around. We hang around a bit ourselves and then investigate lunch.

We take the advice of reviewers on TripAdvisor and choose bar restaurante Paco Ortega. We order a beer each and two fish tapas: cazon in adobo, which we've tried before on a previous visit to Spain and is marinated and then fried dogfish, and tuna 'meatballs'. Both are delicious but the area is famous for its beef: Retinto, so we try 2 tapas of that, one just the meat, the other oxtail stew.

Once again absolutely delicious. We are sitting inside because the tables outside were packed but it's very pleasant, we are just in front of the open window, just for us, with a view of the square. Well officially they were tapas but in practice the portions were so big and rich and tasty that we've eaten enough so we have some coffee (total €20.50) and then continue to El Puerto.

Getting into the underground garage of our Airbnb apartment proves challenging to say the least. I don't think we'll be using the car very much! After settling in and getting some washing done - the apartment is well-equipped with absolutely everything, even an ironing board, we set out in the direction of more food. This time to a 100 Montaditos - a franchise chain of cervecerías with 100 montaditos (small filled rolls), on the menu.

It's good any day of the week but on Wednesdays and Sundays everything is €1 which makes it really excellent value. We puzzle over the choice for a while and decide on 3 each, for example pork loin, crunchy onion and strawberry jam, although when they arrive we can't remember who ordered what and have half each of everything plus chips.

We come out well-contented having spent just €9.50 including beer and are flabbergasted to see it's raining. Ok, there were a few clouds but somehow we didn't expect rain! Fortunately not much, so we squelch back to the flat, where the washing is wetter than when I put it out but the rain has failed to dampen our day.

Kilometres by car: 85

Kilometres on foot:11