Tapas route

Everywhere does it now. Someone in the tourism department of the town hall or, in this case the local chamber of trade,  persuades a bunch of bars to offer a tapa, a small snack, and a drink at a reasonable price. They then publish the list of participating bars as a route and away you go.

The first time we ever saw this was in Sax and in that case the route was only open for a couple of weekends between say noon and 2pm. In each bar, as you bought your drink and tapa, you collected a clue in the form of a jigsaw piece. The completed jigsaw posed some sort of puzzle and the answer might win you a prize. The time limit on the visits caused a lot of elbow fights.

In Cartagena the format is that the event goes on for longer - 16 April to 2 May this year - and that the tapas are on offer whilst the bar is open. You vote for your favourites and not only do the bars get the extra trade they also have the opportunity for the kudos of winning whilst you get the chance of winning prizes.

Strangely, we've just let it pass us by so far which is quite unlike us. Maggie changed all that last night though with something in the Tasca del Tio Andrés. Her description said it had grapes and raisins in it!