We were sorry to say farewell to Seville – beautiful city of orange trees, stunning Mudejár architecture, warm weather and mellow playground evenings. We could tell it was autumn because brown leaves were starting to carpet the footpaths in Parque Maria Luisa, but the summer’s warmth remained baked into the street even at the uncivilised hour of 4.45am when we stood outside our apartment, blinking sleep out of our eyes, waiting for our taxi to arrive to carry us to the airport and our flight back to Santander.

The trip back from Seville marked a turning point for us – we had reached the southernmost part of our European odyssey and from now on, each day would draw us further North – back to colder autumn weather and eventually to Ireland, the next stage of our journey.