Easter in Seville

Last year for Easter we were finally feeling settled in here and didn't do much, so this year we wanted to take a bigger trip for it and travel for the full four days we had off. We choose Seville in Spain, since it's a very Catholic country and we figured it'd be a sight to see. It did not disappoint.

One thing that Seville is known for is tile, and you can see it all over town. I was quite enchanted by it and have dozens of photos of entryways and floors which I will spare the internet. Nowhere is the tile more the focus than at the Plaza de Espana. This was the site of a worlds fair for Spanish-speaking nations years ago, and it has been maintained as a tourist site and park since. The main building has a series of alcoves with tiled displays of each of the regions of Spain. We saw many people getting their pictures taken near the alcove of the region they hailed from, which was a lot of fun.

A big part of Easter in Seville is the processions , which run all of Holy Week. In these, devout locals dress in robes and funny hats and take over the streets. The processions happen throughout the week, with the main focus being Thursday night through Saturday, and at their peak run from midday until two or three in the morning.

Each group starts at its home church and walks the city, passing the main cathedral at some point, and generally ending up back at the starting point. There can be up to sixteen hundred people in each group, and with narrow streets they stretch for miles.

Each group carries one or more floats, which are candlelit at night. These mostly are dioramas of Mary surrounded by flowers and candles and wearing a long cape, though you do run into the odd Jesus as well.

It's quite a delight to chance upon them enroute to some other destination. There is a brochure handed out which gives rough times and locations for each of the groups, but as it was in Spanish and used some local names for locations, we mostly winged it when on the hunt. Once coming home from dinner we managed to get to a three-block area surrounded on all sides by parades. A bit disconcerting, but still a cool experience.

We also, as we do, visited (and climbed) the main cathedral in town. The tower of the cathedral actually dates from a mosque that used to be on the site. The climb has almost no stairs, but rather thirty five or so connected ramps spiraling up the tower which allowed the Oman to ride his horse up to could sing the call to prayer. So cool. Of all the climbs we have done, this was the least cramped and most brightly lit thanks to windows the entire way up.

Within the cathedral were a number of cool sights. This one is the tomb of Christopher Columbus, who hailed from the region. We read that they had done DNA testing to verify it was him, and Mary and I immediately asked each other "Who did they compare it to?" It turns out that he has surviving heirs all these years later, living in Puerto Rico and Spain. Who knew?

Another major site in town is the royal palace, the Alcazar. This palace was designed for Christian kings, but in a Moorish (Islamic) style. And what style! I've really only recently encountered much Islamic art, but I find it completely enchanting. One of the tenets is a representation of God's infiniteness in complex geometric patterns, which I find both aesteticly and intellectually pleasing. It is both a gorgeous pattern to the eye and a representation of God as math and order. The entire public space of the palace is decorated elaborately, and I have literally hundreds of pictures of its floors walls and ceilings.

Outside are extensive gardens which also delight. Closer in to the palace there are more structured gardens and as you get further from it they get more rambling. Thankfully they are full of cover to shelter one from rain, should they be unlucky enough to vacation at the same time as us.

Seville is a city of soul. It's a city of flamenco. Flamenco comes from a blend of Andalusian and gypsy folk music and dancing, and Seville is a center for it. In Vienna you can't swing a Sacher Torte without having a man dressed as Mozart offer to sell you tickets to a classical concert; in Seville it's a flamenco show. Our guidebook had a few suggestions for slightly more authentic shows, so we went for it. It's a very cool thing to see, very soulful and at turns mournful and aggressive. We quite enjoyed it. Our book also suggested a few bars we could go to late at night to see spontaneous flamenco break out, but we really don't think that's a thing.

Oh, bullfighting. Bullfighting is in many ways an integral part of the area's culture, if a controversial one. I actually feel somewhat ambivalent about it -- I can see how it's cruel and unfair to the animals, but on the other hand I know full well where my steak comes from and have no problem with that. Is bullfighting that much more cruel than raising cattle for food? We didn't go to a match, but we did go to the museum at the arena. While the event sprung from a similar tradition to jousting, the arena reminded us a lot of the Colosseum in Rome. The museum was informative and well laid out, but I don't think it resolved my feelings on the sport.

The food in Seville was great, though we did struggle a bit to acclimate to the hours. Lunch is from one to four with kitchens opening at eight for dinner, but we kept finding ourselves in need of a snack at 5. Very frustrating. Thankfully, most of the pastry shops stay open all day. We tried many local specialties, including cookies made with "hair of the angels" and a special bread pudding with honey they only make during Holy Week -- all were great. We also enjoyed the tapas again, especially a place we went on the last night. It was a bit dauntingly filled with people who actually knew Spanish, but we managed to order and consume some great food. We also witnessed the waitress and a patron singing together, which made us think that we may have been wrong about that spontaneous Flamenco thing.

Overall it was a fantastic trip, full of experiences that felt very unique to the place. As always when visiting a locale like this I came away with a renewed desire to live in a place with casual attitude and indoor/outdoor living. And, as always happens, I immediately walked myself through all the impracticalities of that as a life for us. Oh well, we'll always have Seville.