Seville is known for many things – the old cliches of tapas, flamenco and bullfighting, orange trees and the Giralda, but also a ubiquitous feature of the city which you’ll see inside every house, on the walls of every patio,…
El Salvador’s hidden history: where Seville was born
I’ve written before about how Seville is built in successive layers – as new tribes and rulers arrived, so they constructed over the previous inhabitants’ monuments and places of worship. Roman over Phoenician, Visigoth over Roman, Moorish over Visigoth, Christian…
Noche de Fuego: African drums, fire-jumping and pagan madness
Darkness, fire, moonlight, warmth… there’s something magical about midsummer night celebrations. Every year, on the closest Saturday to the solstice (21 June), there’s a candela (bonfire party) in a park in our village. Parque de la Gallega is on the edge of…
Five things Spanish people say a lot (and what they really mean)
I’ve written about lots of fiestas lately – music, dancing, flamenca dresses and general Andalucian excess on all fronts, laughing in the face of austerity and denying the very existence of “la cosa“, as some prefer to refer to la crisis obliquely,…