Mark Colenutt's Blog: Jousting with Windmills - Posts Tagged "spain"
Fiesta: A Life in Seville
I lived in Seville for 11 years before leaving for northern Spanish climes. I spent my entire time in the famous popular 'barrio' of Triana, the old gyspy quarter by the river Guadalquivir that possesses arguably the best townscape view in all Spain. From calle Betis you can take in the dainty looking bullring, the timeless Moorish Torre del Oro where the gold and silver from the New World was temporarily stored as well as the majestic Giralda, which is the cathedral's thousand year old belfry and the city's most recognisable icon.
Triana provided ceramics for ancient Rome and is still home to many such producers today. When Laurie Lee came to Seville this was the neighbourhood where he chose to stay and it is well mentioned in his 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning' and is probably the most beautifully written memoir of travel in Spain. The old moorings along the riverside is where Sebastian Elcano weighed anchor, thereby completing the last stage of Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. But I tell a lie by referring to the water that flows through Seville as a river, it is in reality a canal. The Guadalquivir, meaning 'Big River' in Arabic, flows behind Triana out of touristic sight.
And much of what Sevillla, as the locals call it, possesses is out of reach of the day tripper. A weekend break in Seville will be a rewarding experience but a stay of a year will be a sublime one; an assault on the senses. There is literally too much to take in over a few days. This is principally due to the inexhaustible number of fiestas that Seville celebrates. There are the famous Semana Santa processions and the equally robust 'Feria de abril', which is barely known outside Spanish shores and a fiesta beyond the wildest dreams of any hispanohile. Forget San Fermin, the April Fair is by fair Spain's most alegre and beautiful street party, but you'll need a few sevillanas dance lessons first. That's what I did, at least.
At the Fair you will see the proud horsemen of Andalusia and twirling señoritas in their exuberant flamenco dresses that every woman yearns to parade in no matter where they hail from. The locals and their fortunate guests will kick up their heels non-stop for 4 days all to the back beat of sevillanas, rumba and flamenco. If you miss Seville’s fair just try and catch the next one at Jerez, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga or anywhere else in Andalucía for that matter. Guaranteed you’ll never have seen anything like it and never will again thereafter.
Hidden from the typical tourist experience of Andalusia's capital are the 'Cruces de mayo', where, as the name suggests, crosses in May are erected in secluded squares and sangria, sevillanas and flamenco are enjoyed at the weekends. Posters across town announce their arrival and whereabouts.
As summer approaches the pilgrimages to El Rocío begin and uninitiated tourists are rudely awoken by a volley of rockets exploding in the early hours announcing the exit of a train of pilgrims on foot, horseback and in delicately painted ox-pulled wagons. They are heading out of town and down to the picturesque cowboy village of El Rocío, perched on the edge of the Doñana marshland national park. Is the hedonistic gathering religion or pure merry-making? Only the locals can answer that for you.
Don’t forget this was where the cowboy was born, in Andalusia, the only place in Western Europe where livestock have been herded on horseback for centuries. The system was then taken out to the Americas. Cowboy is therefore a translation from the Spanish vaquero and not vice versa. Ask yourself, where exactly are the traditional cowboy stomping grounds of the US and they are all on the border with the Spanish speaking south.
In the intense August heat, Triana holds a modest fiesta along the banks of the 'river' in calle Betis and the young men impress onlookers by trying the grab a prize hanging from a greased pole that is in turn perched on the prow of a moored boat.
I could go on because there are even more festivities to be enjoyed here and this is the essential charm of living in such a city. Your calendar year is full of celebrations to look forward to. Moments of joy and social gathering with food and drink, music and dance. And that is to take nothing away from Christmas here which is also a treat. It is not necessary to run off to Lapland, Father Christmas has much more sherry to enjoy here in the south, a drink far from the reserve of polite church-going grannies.
So, to come to Seville will give up rich rewards but don't forget that despite the jewels you have experienced, you have both sadly and knowingly barely scratched the surface of what this modest sized city has to offer and has been enjoying for hundreds of years. When they talk about another way of life in Spain, they are in fact referring to Seville.
Triana provided ceramics for ancient Rome and is still home to many such producers today. When Laurie Lee came to Seville this was the neighbourhood where he chose to stay and it is well mentioned in his 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning' and is probably the most beautifully written memoir of travel in Spain. The old moorings along the riverside is where Sebastian Elcano weighed anchor, thereby completing the last stage of Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. But I tell a lie by referring to the water that flows through Seville as a river, it is in reality a canal. The Guadalquivir, meaning 'Big River' in Arabic, flows behind Triana out of touristic sight.
And much of what Sevillla, as the locals call it, possesses is out of reach of the day tripper. A weekend break in Seville will be a rewarding experience but a stay of a year will be a sublime one; an assault on the senses. There is literally too much to take in over a few days. This is principally due to the inexhaustible number of fiestas that Seville celebrates. There are the famous Semana Santa processions and the equally robust 'Feria de abril', which is barely known outside Spanish shores and a fiesta beyond the wildest dreams of any hispanohile. Forget San Fermin, the April Fair is by fair Spain's most alegre and beautiful street party, but you'll need a few sevillanas dance lessons first. That's what I did, at least.
At the Fair you will see the proud horsemen of Andalusia and twirling señoritas in their exuberant flamenco dresses that every woman yearns to parade in no matter where they hail from. The locals and their fortunate guests will kick up their heels non-stop for 4 days all to the back beat of sevillanas, rumba and flamenco. If you miss Seville’s fair just try and catch the next one at Jerez, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga or anywhere else in Andalucía for that matter. Guaranteed you’ll never have seen anything like it and never will again thereafter.
Hidden from the typical tourist experience of Andalusia's capital are the 'Cruces de mayo', where, as the name suggests, crosses in May are erected in secluded squares and sangria, sevillanas and flamenco are enjoyed at the weekends. Posters across town announce their arrival and whereabouts.
As summer approaches the pilgrimages to El Rocío begin and uninitiated tourists are rudely awoken by a volley of rockets exploding in the early hours announcing the exit of a train of pilgrims on foot, horseback and in delicately painted ox-pulled wagons. They are heading out of town and down to the picturesque cowboy village of El Rocío, perched on the edge of the Doñana marshland national park. Is the hedonistic gathering religion or pure merry-making? Only the locals can answer that for you.
Don’t forget this was where the cowboy was born, in Andalusia, the only place in Western Europe where livestock have been herded on horseback for centuries. The system was then taken out to the Americas. Cowboy is therefore a translation from the Spanish vaquero and not vice versa. Ask yourself, where exactly are the traditional cowboy stomping grounds of the US and they are all on the border with the Spanish speaking south.
In the intense August heat, Triana holds a modest fiesta along the banks of the 'river' in calle Betis and the young men impress onlookers by trying the grab a prize hanging from a greased pole that is in turn perched on the prow of a moored boat.
I could go on because there are even more festivities to be enjoyed here and this is the essential charm of living in such a city. Your calendar year is full of celebrations to look forward to. Moments of joy and social gathering with food and drink, music and dance. And that is to take nothing away from Christmas here which is also a treat. It is not necessary to run off to Lapland, Father Christmas has much more sherry to enjoy here in the south, a drink far from the reserve of polite church-going grannies.
So, to come to Seville will give up rich rewards but don't forget that despite the jewels you have experienced, you have both sadly and knowingly barely scratched the surface of what this modest sized city has to offer and has been enjoying for hundreds of years. When they talk about another way of life in Spain, they are in fact referring to Seville.
A Special Place in Spain
There are obviously many places to choose from. Is it possible just to choose one? It's a tough decision. However, I am going for something unknown to the majority. I am not interested in the costas where some overdeveloped 70s generic mould of bland architecture ripped the soul out of anything characteristically Spanish. In such places, you could be anywhere where cheap construction and maximum profit were given prioroty over decent living space and human scale. Some, if not all, is shocking in its assault on the eyes and senses. And modern inner-urban Spain is not far behind its coastal counterparts.
But Spain is still a bite-the-back-of-your-hand beautiful country and that's part of the reason why I have lived here for the past 20 years. And that is precisely where I will be taking you now...
I would recommend Aracena, which is hidden in the hills sandwiched between Huelva and Extremadura and about 45 minutes east from Seville.
It is green rural Spain with whitewashed villages and terracotta tiled rooves that sit like sturdy buckled teeth. City dwellers come here to escape the acute summer heat intensified by unforgiving concrete and tarmac. The rest of the year they come to wine and dine in the rustic idyll.
Architecturally, the villages are secluded gems from hilltop Zufre to valley-based Aracena and Alájar. Aracena's caves are the very entrance to the centre of the Earth, as filmed in the sci-fi classic and among the most spectacular caves in Spain.
There are fortifications of the Knights Templar, a medieval mosque open to all, Spain's oldest bullring and a village that can only be accessed on foot. The air is scented with the homely smell of wood-burning smoke, the aroma of grilled meat and filled with watchful vultures circling overhead.
This is also the land of the rightly famous Iberian mountain ham from the peninsular-based black pigs and is Spain's most prized delicacy. Pepys's buried his parmesan during the Great Fire of London in 1666 to save it from the flames; all Spaniards would leave their burning abode with kids under one arm and their expensive leg of Iberian jamón under the other.
The modest towns of the sierra contain charming cobbles, which are coloured green by tufts of greenery. The pinched patchwork of streets are lined by white-Wensleydale adobe town houses. Their organic feel is something that complements rather than offends Mother Nature. Time has come to a stop here and the rat race has not been allowed to encroach. This is a place where people can still breathe with ease. Joggers have been replaced by strollers, car horns have ceased up and birdsong can even be heard during the daylight hours.
This is an area of abundant natural beauty and somewhere I regular escaped to when I lived in nearby Seville. Now that I live further afield, it is somewhere I often visit in my imagination and where I long to return and will do so, just as soon as I retire...
But Spain is still a bite-the-back-of-your-hand beautiful country and that's part of the reason why I have lived here for the past 20 years. And that is precisely where I will be taking you now...
I would recommend Aracena, which is hidden in the hills sandwiched between Huelva and Extremadura and about 45 minutes east from Seville.
It is green rural Spain with whitewashed villages and terracotta tiled rooves that sit like sturdy buckled teeth. City dwellers come here to escape the acute summer heat intensified by unforgiving concrete and tarmac. The rest of the year they come to wine and dine in the rustic idyll.
Architecturally, the villages are secluded gems from hilltop Zufre to valley-based Aracena and Alájar. Aracena's caves are the very entrance to the centre of the Earth, as filmed in the sci-fi classic and among the most spectacular caves in Spain.
There are fortifications of the Knights Templar, a medieval mosque open to all, Spain's oldest bullring and a village that can only be accessed on foot. The air is scented with the homely smell of wood-burning smoke, the aroma of grilled meat and filled with watchful vultures circling overhead.
This is also the land of the rightly famous Iberian mountain ham from the peninsular-based black pigs and is Spain's most prized delicacy. Pepys's buried his parmesan during the Great Fire of London in 1666 to save it from the flames; all Spaniards would leave their burning abode with kids under one arm and their expensive leg of Iberian jamón under the other.
The modest towns of the sierra contain charming cobbles, which are coloured green by tufts of greenery. The pinched patchwork of streets are lined by white-Wensleydale adobe town houses. Their organic feel is something that complements rather than offends Mother Nature. Time has come to a stop here and the rat race has not been allowed to encroach. This is a place where people can still breathe with ease. Joggers have been replaced by strollers, car horns have ceased up and birdsong can even be heard during the daylight hours.
This is an area of abundant natural beauty and somewhere I regular escaped to when I lived in nearby Seville. Now that I live further afield, it is somewhere I often visit in my imagination and where I long to return and will do so, just as soon as I retire...
Flamenco Appreciation Society
I have seen quite a bit of Flamenco during my time in Spain, from the famous Madrid tablao Casa Patas to the biannual of Flamenco in Seville. I have seen shows in village theatres and bullrings as well as local bars and even Barcelona's elegant Liceu theatre.
Madrid is surprisingly world HQ for the art form but the South is its homeland and the gypsies are the celebrated masters of its dance, song and guitar. Within Flamenco there are strong and subtle differences from the deep song of 'cante jondo' to the strident bulerías of 'fiesta flamenca'. Non-gypsies are referred to as 'payos' by the clan and while there are outsiders that can keep up with the 'gitano' masters, when it comes to the volatile strumming of bulerías, the gypsies leave everyone behind.
If some of the singing is a bit too heavy on the ear, especially the characteristic Arabic 'quejío' cry at the beginning, you must first understand that this is the heart felt sorrow of a persecuted people and that message has been enshrined in its 'cante jondo'. It is an unwritten document in the ancient storytelling tradition. What you are listening to is not some specifically scuplted chart topper. Have a historical perspective and everything changes.
If the singing of Camarón, José Mercé or Estrella Morente doesn't move you then maybe flamenco dance will inspire you. It was Barcelona-born gypsy Carmen Amaya, who made the dance internationally famous when the world was still black and white and colour had yet to be invented. She may never be surpassed. Individual dancers and troupes now tour the world and Spain and continuously perform to heads of state.
The best dancer I have seen is unquestionably Farruquito in Seville and Barcelona. No crowd reaction comes close, and if you are ever lucky enough to see Flamenco in the South, especially in Seville, then to hear the audience clapping Flamenco as an encore is the most uplifting emotion I have ever experienced in a theatre. Feeling is believing, in this case. It unseats the house every time. There is something special about the primitive beat and elegant lines that are both feminine and masculine at once.
Lorca fed into this emotion and his play 'La Casa de Benarda Alba' is a masterful work that resonates with Andalusia's deep song.
Flamenco began life in 'los cafés de flamenco', of which only one or two still survive in old Seville. There, they won a paying audience and the music gradually gained a structure and discipline.
The guitar takes a lifetime to perfect and plectrums are forbidden, as the technique is too complex for their use. Paco de Lucía is the undisputed king and the greatest innovator in the genre. I was blessed with the rare opportunity to see him perform with his group in the Seville during 'Bienal de Flamenco' and no concert has ever come close to the rapture of that experience. Flamenco on the guitar, flute, piano and the most amazing dancer: Joaquín Grillo. That night the foundations of the elegant Maestranza theatre shook and everyone trembled. No theatre audience before or since has outpoured so much admiration, less a revolution was starting up.
Living in Seville meant a regular supply of Flamenco wafting out from bars and playing in theatres and street fiestas. Seville, like the rest of Andalucía has identity, and that is marked quite clearly by the soundtrack of Flamenco that is played in every city, town and hamlet. Close your eyes and you will know where you are. Few places make the same impression and that is the true pull and power of Andalucía.
I now live in Girona and there is no music here like there is in the South. I miss it intensely. 'To leave the South is to leave the fiesta,' I wrote that in my book. It is something I knew then, and my experience has only confirmed that belief.
Handel called architecture 'frozen music', so that will have to do for now, I suppose.
Madrid is surprisingly world HQ for the art form but the South is its homeland and the gypsies are the celebrated masters of its dance, song and guitar. Within Flamenco there are strong and subtle differences from the deep song of 'cante jondo' to the strident bulerías of 'fiesta flamenca'. Non-gypsies are referred to as 'payos' by the clan and while there are outsiders that can keep up with the 'gitano' masters, when it comes to the volatile strumming of bulerías, the gypsies leave everyone behind.
If some of the singing is a bit too heavy on the ear, especially the characteristic Arabic 'quejío' cry at the beginning, you must first understand that this is the heart felt sorrow of a persecuted people and that message has been enshrined in its 'cante jondo'. It is an unwritten document in the ancient storytelling tradition. What you are listening to is not some specifically scuplted chart topper. Have a historical perspective and everything changes.
If the singing of Camarón, José Mercé or Estrella Morente doesn't move you then maybe flamenco dance will inspire you. It was Barcelona-born gypsy Carmen Amaya, who made the dance internationally famous when the world was still black and white and colour had yet to be invented. She may never be surpassed. Individual dancers and troupes now tour the world and Spain and continuously perform to heads of state.
The best dancer I have seen is unquestionably Farruquito in Seville and Barcelona. No crowd reaction comes close, and if you are ever lucky enough to see Flamenco in the South, especially in Seville, then to hear the audience clapping Flamenco as an encore is the most uplifting emotion I have ever experienced in a theatre. Feeling is believing, in this case. It unseats the house every time. There is something special about the primitive beat and elegant lines that are both feminine and masculine at once.
Lorca fed into this emotion and his play 'La Casa de Benarda Alba' is a masterful work that resonates with Andalusia's deep song.
Flamenco began life in 'los cafés de flamenco', of which only one or two still survive in old Seville. There, they won a paying audience and the music gradually gained a structure and discipline.
The guitar takes a lifetime to perfect and plectrums are forbidden, as the technique is too complex for their use. Paco de Lucía is the undisputed king and the greatest innovator in the genre. I was blessed with the rare opportunity to see him perform with his group in the Seville during 'Bienal de Flamenco' and no concert has ever come close to the rapture of that experience. Flamenco on the guitar, flute, piano and the most amazing dancer: Joaquín Grillo. That night the foundations of the elegant Maestranza theatre shook and everyone trembled. No theatre audience before or since has outpoured so much admiration, less a revolution was starting up.
Living in Seville meant a regular supply of Flamenco wafting out from bars and playing in theatres and street fiestas. Seville, like the rest of Andalucía has identity, and that is marked quite clearly by the soundtrack of Flamenco that is played in every city, town and hamlet. Close your eyes and you will know where you are. Few places make the same impression and that is the true pull and power of Andalucía.
I now live in Girona and there is no music here like there is in the South. I miss it intensely. 'To leave the South is to leave the fiesta,' I wrote that in my book. It is something I knew then, and my experience has only confirmed that belief.
Handel called architecture 'frozen music', so that will have to do for now, I suppose.
