While planning our trip across Andalusia, we decided to stay in some of the smaller White Villages that dot the region, sprawling and tumbling over sandstone-colored hilltops. Some of the notable ones – like Arcos de la Frontera and Ronda – were too big for our intent, but since we were traveling with kids, we didn’t want to go extra small, notwithstanding our surprise stay at Anaya, a town of less than 140 people. A quick search through Expedia and Tripadvisor brought up Marques de la Gomera as a quintessential Spanish Villa with pretty high ratings in the town of Osuna. Since this hotel seemed to be along the way towards Granada which is where we were headed the next day, it made perfect sense to stay here. And so, a family suite (it was off-season, and hotels went relatively cheap) for 4 was booked and forgotten.
Weeks later, in Spain, and while driving down A-92 out of Seville, I had completely forgotten the name of the town or the hotel, and dusk was approaching. Having experienced some of the small hotels shutting down early for the day, we thought it would be prudent to call the hotel up that we would be arriving late. The Expedia app on my phone showed Marques as the hotel and displayed its phone number, so we called ahead and made sure everything was confirmed. Upon arrival, and after a few retries of trying to park the car in what seemed like a parking space for a motor-bike, and my eventual frustration and failure to do so, we went inside the Marques and were taken to a room that could only be described as regal. We freshened up and decided to walk to dinner and asked the lobby for suggestions on an interesting tapas bar, and were gladly provided one within 10 blocks of the hotel.
It is then that the fun started. I decided to Google “Osuna” to figure out what else would be worth looking at in the town and whether we could walk to any of those places, and this link came up – Hilltop Spanish town hopes for major tourist and employment boost as ‘Game of Thrones’ begins filming. And there it was, our hotel, pictured right smack-dab-center of the article! (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2804012/Game-Thrones-starts-shooting-fifth-season-Spanish-town-Osuna.html#i-e0786a6c6277ac04). While walking to the tapas bar, all we could talk about was how disconnected we have been from GoT and maybe we should start watching it once we are back in the US.
Casa Curro was an archetypical small-town tapas bar, and was empty when we landed up at 7.45pm. On the positive side, we easily got a seat at the bar and began a fluid conversation with its curator, Ramon (below), in spotty English and sign language. One look at the tapas menu in Spanish, and I reverted to asking Ramon to surprise me with his best. For the next hour, Ramon brought out delicacies such as Presa Iberica con Foie and the surprisingly Indian-curry-like Pedro Jimenez pork chaps (not chops) cooked in spices and bay leaves.
While walking back after our hearty meal, another search brought up Casa Curro as having benefited from the recent GoT Season 5 shoot.
