Having announced earlier that day that we would be passing by to watch the match and have a bite to eat and a few drinks, our friends at “La Cueva” en Torrenueva assured us the best table in the house. To be honest, I figured they were just being nice and showing a bit of a sense of humour. We had been going there for years but recently friends of the family had just taken it over and customer service had been greatly improved, not just for us but for everyone, the bar had taken a great leap forwards and was working better than ever before. Fresh blood with enthusiasm and a bit of creativity in the tapas had done the world of good for this village venue. I mentioned to my wife that they would reserve “the best table in the house” for us and my wife was also bemused. She answered “outside? But they are all the same?”... I replied “Yes, outside, but I suppose it will be near the flat screen so we can watch the match”, but to be honest we were in for a pleasant surprise, something that would never have crossed my mind. The day passed and I hadn’t given it any more thought than you would. We had suffered 44ºC+ that day and the heat was stifling, the sort of heat that takes your breath away when you step outside from an air conditioned room, a change of temperature of no less that 20ºC in an instance, it knocks you in the face, your body heats up instantly and it is no different than stepping into a hot oven. I felt like a roast on Sundays.
We arrived at La Cueva a little early and they were hosing down the street before setting up the terrace. I figured it was to clean the pedestrian area before the next sitting, but it was exceptionally clean in fact and there was the waiter with a power hose dumping litres of water onto the pavement (from their well). I said to him “it looks clean to me, why so much water?”…. “it’s not for the dirt” he replied and smiled “it’s to take the heat out of the paving”. Naturally the burning sun heated up the paved terrace area that had absorbed the heat throughout the day only to release it again at night while everyone would be having dinner, so this was a daily ritual before opening for the evening sitting. While he prepared the tables we grabbed an ice-cold beer and waited anxiously to be seated at the “best table in the house”. The tables and chairs were your typical aluminium tables and chairs you would find on any terrace around Spain sponsored by Coca-Cola, so I wasn’t sure what was going to make our table stand out from the rest, apart from maybe being in front of the flat screen. The table went out, chairs in place, flat screen on and I immediately went towards the first table in front of the screen, when the waiter called out, “No, no that table, yours is over here”…I looked over to him and he pointed to a table that was two rows back up against the wall, admittedly the view of the flat screen for the match was more than acceptable but I was a bit confused. “There you are, the best table in the house, as I had promised. This is a table people fight for every night, trust me you’ll be very happy at this table”…Fight for? I thought…What on earth is he talking about? It’s no different than the other tables and is right up against the wall, is he losing the plot? He walked back out and said “that’s the table that gave this bar its name: La Cueva, sit down and you’ll see what I mean!” I proceeded to sit down, as did my wife and family and suddenly we received a gust of cold air coming up from beneath our chairs, which I have to admit was incredibly refreshing given that we were still over 33ºC at that time with virtually no humidity. It passed and then after a few seconds another gust of cool air came up from beneath the table and chairs, as if there were some sort of air conditioning unit next to us, cooling down the vicinity of our table. 
I looked down and what did I see? An iron grill covering the entrance to a hole that seemed to go down a fair way beneath the building, what they called a “respiradero”, a large and very old vent.“It is the vent for the underground stone cave” said the waiter, “it will be chucking out cool air all evening…enjoy the match!”. To my surprise it did, as if we had our own air-con, the circulation of underground air through the caves brought the cool air out through the vents right up to our table…it wasn't just the best table in the house it was the coolest table in the house! It was very common in this region to build or carve out an underground cellars or caves to preserve food and thus have a cool room at all times, many building had them and the one at “La Cueva (The Cave)” had one, just in the right place! All of a sudden it became my favourite table, while everyone else was fighting off the heat we were calmly relaxed in our natural microclimate, enjoying tapas and beers without giving the heat another thought. In fact the only thing that provoked any "heat" was the poor perfomance on the pitch by our our team!