A Spanish Fiesta with Monarch Airlines

A couple of weeks ago I took a little trip to Birmingham on the train to attend a really fun Spanish evening with Monarch Airlines which they were hosting to introduce their new flight paths from Birmingham airport to Madrid and Lisbon.

A lovely small group of us were treated to a wonderful Spanish experience, with Tapas, a Flamenco lesson, Sangria making, and even a little Spanish lesson, all at the very lovely Amantia Restaurant.

I absolutely love Spain and the language, and particularly Tapas – so it was a perfect night for me spent with a couple of good friends; Rachel and Zara.

The food was so delicious – we had lots of cured meats, Calamari, Manchego, Spanish Tortilla, and these amazing things that I wouldn’t have expected to like – they were kind of like sausage rolls, but instead of being filled with sausage meat they had black pudding, and we decided maybe goats cheese and some kind of relish – they were so nice and I ate far too many.

It was so lovely having our wine topped up whilst chatting to the Monarch cabin crew and finding more out about what they do and why they love their jobs so much, whilst eating so much lovely food. One of the new places Monarch Airlines are flying to soon is Madrid which I went to last year for a couple of days – it was burning hot and I loved it. We spent a lovely afternoon having a picnic in a beautiful park and then boating on the lake in the red hot sun – it was one of my favourite days during the month we were away. The other city they are now flying to is another that I’m lucky enough to have been too – Lisbon. I love Portugal and I did enjoy Lisbon, although I did feel like I didn’t have enough time there to see it properly, so I’d love to go back.

We then learnt how to make the perfect sangria, which you can find the recipe for below – I had no idea that so much went into it! And then we had a very fun Flamenco lesson that I got really into by the end, despite feeling very awkward at the start! The Flamenco teacher told us all off a lot when we got it wrong (a lot), and I think she perhaps thought we weren’t taking it seriously enough! It’s a brilliant workout though – my legs were bloody killing afterwards from all that stomping!

We got to take home a lovely goody bag at the end of the night – and honestly if I could design my perfect goody bag it would definitely contain Chorizo and cheese as this one did. It was a really relaxed, fun and interesting night, and it certainly made me want to visit Spain again soon!