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| 13 - 09 - 2007 STRATHLEVEN ARTIZANS TRIP TO TEBA, SPAIN. |
| Seven of us flew out from Glasgow, one of the lads Graham was already over there organizing things and a great job he did too ( thanks Graham from all the guys). The trip itself was a great success we all had a brilliant time the local people were real friendly and made us all feel most welcome. The trip started real early on Thursday morning 3.30 up lift to be at airport and checked in for 7.00 flight to Malaga, a good flight over about 3 hours we arrived in Malaga the temp was about 80 deg (magic), we arrived at our villa about oneish in the village of Teba. |
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The villa sits right below the castle (the castle of the stars) you see where it gets it's name from when you see it for yourself. Thursday and Friday was relaxation time, and sightseeing, we went round the lakes and visited Ronda which is rich in history and is a beautiful town. |
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We joined the town's Mayor, the British Consulate, some other Scottish folk who stay on the south coast of Spain as well as the local people, at this point we all mingled with the crowd who wanted their photos taken with us all in our kilts.
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The Mayor then started proceedings by giving a speech on the event and El Douglas, then the British Consulate give a short speech (in Spanish) followed by our own Graham Fleming who spoke on our behalf as he speaks fluent Spanish. We then had a march up through the village, to the Douglas Monument which Strathleven Artizans (40 Bowmen of St Sebastian's) had the honor of leading followed by the Teba brass band, more speeches where made at the monument followed by the laying of wreaths, we then marched back down to the town hall, at the end of the procession we had more photos taken with the locals, after this we then made our way to a local hotel where we were guest of honour at the Lord's Mayor's banquet, this was a lovely surprise for us. At around 9.45pm we all sat down to supper there must have been about 7 courses to the meal, wine, beer and water. We left about 1.30am by this time the party was in full flow their was other events going on in the village throughout the night, the Celtic music festival etc. |
| On the Sunday a parade left at 10.00am from the Douglas monument up to the castle which again the Bowmen had the honor of leading. A local historian was telling the local folk about the castle and Sir James Douglas and Robert the Bruce, up on the castle it was very windy which lead to some cracking photos with the flags blowing, the tour round the castle lasted about 3 hours then it was back to the town hall for some more food and photos. At this point the proceedings ended, we then returned to our villa and spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool, at night we headed in to Teba for our last meal which we had in the bar Solera run by a great guy called Rafael where we tasted the local food Spanish style again 5-7 courses amazing food washed down by local wine and beer, it was superb. After the meal Rafael cracked open a bottle of champagne a brilliant end to a brilliant time in Teba the heart of Scotland in Spain. |  |
| New friendships where made and we all look forward to going back over again next year. by Jim Tannock on behalf of Strathleven Artizans |
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