Thrilled by Seville

The quality of this photo is not great, but I felt it best captured the experience of our evening's entertainment. Edit: oops, this is Sunday's blip but has somehow been posted on Monday -- that's the trouble wth backblipping!

Another full day; this time we had our coffee and tostadas in a trendy cafe near the Setas (see yesterday) where most of the customers were foreigners but the bread was home-made and very good. Our plan to visit the cathedral and Giralda was snookered by the fact that the cathedral isn't open on Sunday mornings, for reasons which will be obvious. Instead we went to the archaeological museum underneath the Setas, which was more interesting than we expected it to be, with impressive Roman remains in the form of a street of houses, some with mosaic pavements. The original plan was for an underground car park, but it was swiftly revised when archaeologists established the extent and quality of the remains. I couldn't help thinking the site of the Clos des Lombards in Narbonne could be made equally impressive if the city council cared a whit for the town's Roman history, which they don't.

After this we ambled through town towards Alfalfa. I had noticed that Seville has many churches, but what amazed us was the sheer number and variety of people going into them. Chez nous, church is for old ladies -- literally no-one else goes. Here there were old ladies, teenagers in miniskirts, twenty-something guys in hoodies, men in smart suits ... We peeked inside one church and it was standing room only. The services seem to be drop-in events; there was a constant stream of people arriving, muttering a few prayers, and leaving again.

It was at this point that I registered that nearly every street name in central Seville has a religious reference. Oodles of saints of course, but the street we are staying in is called Amor de Dios (God's love) and there's also Jésus del Gran Poder (Jesus of Great Power), Jésus de la Vera Cruz (Jesus of the True Cross) and many others. No wonder Holy Week is such a big deal in Seville.

For lunch we met up wth G and G, last seen in Lisbon; this jet-setting pair now have a nice flat in central Seville. After admiring their two-storey roof terrace we went to a local bar for a light lunch, thence for a stroll to the Palacio de la Duquesa de Alba, recently opened to the public. 


Doña María del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva, who died a couple of years ago after a long and colourful life, was the most titled woman in the world; due to inbreeding intermarrying she had 40 noble titles. She was widowed twice, and when well into her eighties she married a civil servant 24 years her junior, despite the objections of the king and her many children. Spanish gossip magazines must have been gutted when she died because every issue had at least half a dozen photos of her. In fact the long-running "people" magazine show just before the main evening news on TV closed down and has now been replaced by a much more interesting nature and culture magazine.

The palace is in Moorish style and crammed with over-stuffed furniture and ornaments in dubious taste. From here we walked to the Plaza San Salvador, which was absolutely heaving with people eating and drinking; I have the impression that this is a feature of life in Seville 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. We ended up on the roof terrace of well-known department store El Corte Ingles, which has been turned into one of those food courts which have become so trendy. This one was a bit sanitised for us, but it didn't stop us enjoying the view and the glasses of cava.

Later, after saying goodbye to G and G, we had another short rest at the flat before the inevitable tapas and glass of wine on Alameda. In the "what's on" pamphlet, I'd found an intriguing looking musical event a few minutes' walk away so we set off there. On the way we passed the Cafe Naima where a very cool looking jam session was going on. We were very tempted, but decided we should try something different.

I'd had the impression that Anima was just an art gallery, but I was wrong. It was in a rather drab-looking street (by Seville standards) in a slightly tatty traditional house, and turned out to be a bar with sawdust on the floor and art on the walls. The bar itself is in what was once an internal patio, now covered with a dirty glass roof. The doors and windows to the inner rooms had been removed to make a single space divided by walls, and the rooms were crammed to bursting with rickety chairs. The bar, though, was almost deserted. We decided to buy a drink and see what happened next. Sitting down, we noted the fragments of a broken beer bottle under our table, witness to either violent arguments or a relaxed attitude to cleaning.

Over the next half hour, the bar filled up with many people heading straight to the inner rooms to bag spaces on the chairs. There had been no evidence of food, but it turned out that there was a tiny kitchen and people started ordering tapas and toasted sandwiches. To say it was a mixed crowd is an understatement. Burly men in sweatshirts, smart ladies of a certain age in quilted anoraks, a group of neatly dressed young women, and lots of young people chatting in various languages.

Eventually some musicians appeared, which was reassuring -- a clarinetist and a guitarist. They tuned up while the crowd chatted and drank. Then the lights dimmed, someone hissed "They're starting!" and in an instant there was silence -- you could have heard a pin drop. The most startling Seville experience yet. The studious silence was maintained throughout every piece, broken only by applause at the end and the occasional swiftly stifled clink of glasses from behind the bar. We ordered some mulled wine which was made to order and came in an earthenware jug with two earthenware tumblers to drink from. It felt as if we'd discovered a well-kept secret although I'm sure this wasn't the case; it's probably very well known among the Seville counterculture.

The musicians were the Proyecto Entremares, described as a mixture of "Fados, choros, fandangos, mornas, Atlantic sounds, celtic rhythms and Spanish musical influences, especially flamenco". It was very special and worth skipping the jazz for. Listen here. It's long but worth listening to the end

We left just before midnight and walked back through quiet (for once) streets. The musicians were still playing at the Cafe Naima, but we walked on, still in the Atlantic soundworld.

If you're still reading, the Seville backblips start here. Plus some selected photos on Flickr right from here (more to come).