FOOD,DRINK & TRAVEL

land between the two key Andalucian cities has three or four towns of incredible touristic interest all well worth a visit.

I’ve long extolled the delights of the little-known gems of Ecija and Carmona (allegedly Spain’s oldest settlement) for anyone who’s done Sevilla and Cordoba, or equally Granada, Malaga and Ronda to death.

But how about Osuna or Medina Azahara? All gems of the former Roman and later Moorish dynasties that ruled the region for well over 10 centuries.

Our tour began around 10 miles north of Sevilla at the ancient city of Italica, where two scenes from Game of Thrones were filmed.

This Roman town that has been slowly unravelling itself to archaeologists for the last century, is replete with a number of villas and a spectacular coliseum, where a zombie, known as ‘the Whitewalker’ is put to death in the programme.

An enormous site crisscrossed with ancient paved streets and dotted with monuments, the tragedy is how much of the former city was carted away in the 18th century to build the main road north into Extremadura and even a dam on the River Guadalquivir.

It’s still an impressive place to visit (the birthplace of emperors Trajan and Emperor Hadrian) and a real surprise for first time visitors, with many a Spanish bride and groom getting their official wedding pictures here.

Founded in 206BC, it was built on a classic Roman grid plan with public buildings and a forum at the centre and was linked to a busy port on the nearby Guadalquivir. Thanks to Hadrian who built a number of temples and made it an official ‘colonia’ it thrived for hundreds of years until the 3rd century, when the river silted up, encouraging the growth of nearby Sevilla. It’s still an impressive site and thankfully the vast majority of tourists visiting nearby Sevilla do not venture out, meaning you will often have the place to yourselves.

From here we struck out east towards Osuna, where we stayed for the night, thanks to its healthy choice of former palaces to bed down in.

A strategic place which once stood on the edge of the former Kingdom of Granada and the hilly Cordilleras Beticas where the Moors clung on for two centuries until 1492, it was first inhabited by the Tartessians 3000 years ago. Becoming a Roman colony called Genetiva Iulia, when Julius Caesar visited, it later became known as Oxuna in Moorish times until it was taken by the Catholic kings in 1239 after a Continues on next page

ORNATE: Italica is crisscrossed with paved streets and full of mosaics, plus an impressive colosseum