Chufster / Simone Icough

I visited St Lucia when I was on a P&O cruise from Southampton. The beaches were beautiful and the feeling of serenity was explosive.

However, I would not go back here again as something didn’t feel quite right, as if the locals did not like tourists being there – very unwelcoming – especially if you compare the feel of the island to Barbados, which is very welcoming and warming.

We wandered away from the port the day we docked there and that was a shock, many people just sleeping on street corners, jumping out of hedges at us trying to sell drugs, the poverty we saw that evening was an eye opener.

Having said that, most areas of towns that have a port are not going to be the prettiest or touristic, I live in Malaga and I can’t say that the port there is ideal for a night out!

We spent only one day in St Lucia so perhaps we need to give it a fair trial :)

Seville is a wonderful city to visit, with many attractions to suit the traveller.

The 9th April Seville shines more than usual in order to welcome Easter Week. Palm Sunday is the beginning of this holiday, and scenes of Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection are told and seen throughout the city, until the 16th April. The stage is the city’s streets and the most beautiful corners in town.

A very special part of the Easter Week in Seville is made up by the “costaleros”, the people who carry on their shoulders or their backs are flotas in the processions. Each float needs about 30 or 40 “costaleros”, depending on the size. The whole group of these people under the float is called a “cuadrilla”.

Their physical effort is enormous, although they all agree that their reward is to be able to carry the statues they are devoted to. They usually wear simple slippers or trainers, a girdle around their waist and a piece of cloth covering their heads.

The “capataces” are the people who wear a suit and guide the “costaleros”. They have to knock on a device which is located at the front of the float for the “costaleros” and they also encourage cheer those who are under the float. When he gives the sign, the “cuadrilla” coordinate all the movements and walk at the same time, offering a beautiful picture.

Alhambra remains one of the most extraordinary and rewarding collections of buildings and gardens on the continent. The Alhambra complex started life in the 11th century as a basic structure of bush coloured walls and fortified towers. Its strategic location on the inaccessible hill of al-Sabikah attracted Mohammed I, the founder of the Nasrid dynasty, who set-up a hydraulic system of aqueducts and cisterns to support an independent township. The most spectacular period of Nasrid architecture came in the 14th century and introduced the Palacio de los Leones and the Palacio de Comares. The Palacio de Carlos V and the Convento de San Francisco are undeniably beautiful in their own right and heighten the Alhambra’s sense of history. After Carlos V left in the mid 16th century the whole site gradually fell into ruin and went on to suffer terrible abuse at the hands of Napoleon’s troops, who were stationed in Granada in 1812. After the release of Washington Irving’s book ‘Tales of the Alhambra’, put Granada firmly on the tourist map and the Spanish government finally allotted funds for the restoration of the site (this project remains on-going).