Welcome home to Sevilla

This might be a very short post because what is there to say about Sevilla? Photos are better:

 

Doesn't that look wonderful? Okay well I've come up with a few things to say. From autumn 2002 to May 17, 2003 I lived in Sevilla, studying culture, language, and international business. I lived with a "Spanish Family" which pretty exclusively means a divorced and/or retired Spanish woman who needs extra income, so she lets rooms. But that's fine, my Señora was fine, and her home was a backdrop to just the most delightful year of my life. I met people with whom I bonded instantly, and count as friends to this day.  I (we) traveled extensively through Spain, though to be fair, once one lives in Andalucía, the idea of going elsewhere is absurd. 

Beaches? Go to Cádiz. 

Alcohol? Welcome to Jerez de la Frontera, have some sherry. 

Delicious seafood? Málaga can get it. 

Home of flamenco? La Triana in Sevilla. 

Love to ski? Head for Granada. 

Site of the world's first bull-fighting ring? Grab a seat in Ronda. 

Most amazing mosque you'll ever see? In Córdoba, obvs. 

Spookiest religious festival? Semana Santa in Sevilla hands down. 

Oldest city in all of Europe? Cádiz again. 

Only place in the world you can walk into the UK? La Línea de la Concepción (to Gibraltar). 

Ice cream so good it makes Italian gelato look like garbage? Rayas in Sevilla.  

Boom. You're welcome world.

Sally and I got to Sevilla at the tail end of June, when Venus and Jupiter in conjunction lit up the night sky after the sun finally set around 10pm. That's also when we sat for tapas and tinto verano at night, and marveled at parents walking their toddlers through the streets until 1am. The first night we arrived around 10pm and threw our bags down and ran out into the streets. Sally had been listening to me and a few other travelers wax romantic about Sevilla, so she was nearly as giddy about seeing it as I was. We wandered through the maze of Santa Cruz, randomly turning right and left and being totally alone but never creeped out (like the time the guy followed us in Berlin). Locals say that even a map won't help you through Santa Cruz, and that everyone gets lost, so I was pretty chuffed to always get us where we needed to go. 

It's so beautiful!

Rather surprisingly, Sandeman doesn't offer city tours here, but luckily for us, our amazing, fantastic, delightful, and very last hostel of the trip, La Banda Rooftop Hostel (with view of La Giralda) works with a tour company that does a few different tours, the first of which we did the afternoon of our first day in town. Before that we spent the morning in the Alcázar and then the Catedral de Sevilla, climbing La Giralda for a view of the city and marveling at the completely unique design aesthetic for which the city is famous. But let's get to it: the tour.  You've gotten a fair bit of European history from my posts so far, most notably of Barcelona, so I'll keep it as brief as the 2,000 years of city history allows.

Phoenicians were probably the first settlers of the area, though mythologically speaking, Hercules is the city's founder. The Romans developed the area extensively around 45 BC, and in fact the hills of Sevilla (now the town Italica) was the birthplace of two important Roman emperors: Trajan and Hadrian. Hadrian rather famously directed construction of a rather famous defensive wall...in 122 AD in Britannia. And preceding Hadrian, Trajan was famous for expanding the Roman empire as large as it would ever get in only 21 years (that's why they needed a wall later). When the Roman empire fell, the area was overtaken a number of times throughout the fifth and sixth centuries, finally by the Visigoths whose capital was Toledo at the time, but saw the utility of a walled city on the Guadalquivir river. They ruled in Sevilla for a few hundred years before the Moors (Berbers from North Africa) conquered the region (and up to the Pyrenees!) in the eighth century. 

I didn't realize that Berbers were not necessarily Muslim, and that it was the Arab conquering of North Africa at the same time the Berbers were conquering Andalucía that ultimately brought Islam to Spain. A series of Caliphates presided over the province until the mid-1200s when Ferdinand III began reconquering the region for the Catholic cause, and while Sevilla fell under Ferdinand, Granada remained an Islamic seat of power in Spain until 1492. We all know what happened in 1492. 

What a tool.

Did you know it was basically Columbus's fault the Muslims and Jews were pushed out of Spain? Because when he came to Queen Isabella for the first time in 1485, she didn't have the funds to send him on his absurd adventure, but she was embarking on a religious reconquering of a very wealthy area of Spain. So instead of simply forcing conversions and having tests of faith and charging outrageous tax rates to any non-Christians, Isabella decided it would simply be easier to own all of the heathens property. "Go home," she said, to families who had lived in Spain for nearly 800 years. If they couldn't, well, they were murdered. Mama's got to make that paper. Seven years later, her coffers fat with the riches stolen from persecuted Muslims and Jews, she waved Columbus on his way. Seriously, can you believe we celebrate this douchebag in the US?!

Okay well that is as far as I'm going with the history lesson. The more important detail is that our tour guide Medi was hysterical and insane. When our large group assembled in Plaza Nueva at 5pm we had no idea what we were in for. With Medi's constant snapping fingers and running frantically around, we looked at each other cynically; could we really stand it all for 2.5 hours? But his pushing and pulling, specifically moving us to enact historic scenes for one another, and as visual aids for his scandalous stories, really made history come alive in a delightful way! 

Members of the tour literally chasing after our guide

We did stick with him...for more like 3.5 hours. We learned about the flags of Spain, Andalucía, and Sevilla, about the varied architectural styles that make up the Catedral and its Islamic foundation that can still be seen in La Giralda (a minaret) and the Patio de los Naranjos (the cleansing area for Muslims). We learned that perhaps it is Christopher Columbus in the fanciful tomb inside the cathedral, or at least one of his relatives. We learned that the beautiful Arabic designs in and around Sevilla are not from the Islamic period at all, but a Christian reinterpretation called Mudéjar. 

 

We learned about the Roman architectural elements that keep the streets of the Santa Cruz neighborhood 5-7 degrees cooler than the large modern boulevards, as well as the expulsion of the Jews, owed in some part to Sevilla's Sosana (played by Sally), a Jewish temptress who betrayed her family to a Christian lover, watched as they were all slaughtered, became a nun for a while, then realized she wanted to get married for real, and ultimately when she died, asked that her traitorous head be hung from the window of her family's house in Santa Cruz.

Where Sosana's head may have hung for 120 years

Whoops, got more history in there. Okay, tour over. We found a place with cheap tinto verano and yummy tapas, and enjoyed the late-night sunset before it dawned on me that we were right in my old neighborhood. So I took Sally along Avenida Eduardo Dato to see if we could find the big Sanyo sign atop my Nervión neighborhood apartment building. The sign had been replaced, and it was quite dark when we got there, but it was the old complex, and I reminisced aloud as we strolled.

The next morning we doubled down on Medi and took another of his epic walking tours, this one covering a totally different facet of Sevilla. I promise I won't bore you. More photos:

 

 

After the tour we were starving, so we took Medi's lunch suggestion and had a great cheap meal at Taberna Coloniales, followed by more delicious helado from Rayas. We took an afternoon breather back at La Banda before we headed out to see a show at the Museo de Baile Flamenco. It is considered a living museum, because while there are both permanent and rotating exhibits, the museum also teaches workshops of dance and music, and shows two nightly performances that change depending on the dancers and guitarists performing. The show we saw consisted of an opening dance, a guitar solo, a female solo dance to very sad, dramatic music, a vocalist solo, a male solo dance to very joyful music, and a big finale! Sally noted that the male performance seemed like a hybrid of Irish river dancing and tap dancing and wanted to start taking lessons. The hour-long performance was beautiful, but the dancing was too fast for my camera. Here's a shot of the dancers, singers, and guitarist taking a bow:

 After that I dragged Sally to La Carbonería, my local haunt a million years ago. It was shockingly empty, but we bought a pitcher of sangria and sat down to watch a smaller scale flamenco performance, for free! Around 11:30pm we realized our sangria intake exceeded our food intake and dashed into the streets in search of nourishment. Sally found homemade potato chips and I found a chicken kebab, so we wound our way back to the hostel for a nightcap on the roof. 

I feel as if I've not conveyed our experience in Sevilla to you, but maybe it's as easy as this: Sally and I walked and walked, ogling a beautiful city under the bright sun and midday heat, cooling off with ice cream and fizzy drinks and generally celebrating life. Our last day in Sevilla was lovely and slow, enjoying the morning at the hostel, walking out to the Plaza de España, meandering through Parque Maria Luisa, drinking coffee, eating lunch, and mentally preparing for a new country. 

 

Our next stop, France. 

But first, Sally and I reenacted one of the last photos I took the last time I was in Sevilla:

 

YES.