The Slower Road

Yesterday (Tuesday) was the first official day of Sevilla’s feria … when practically the entire city appears on the fairgrounds – women and children in colorful flamenco-style outfits, men in suits, riders in traditional outfits, horses in fancy English-style or traditional Andalusian harness. The day is a combination of trying “to see and be seen” and visiting with friends and family. And, as you might imagine, chatting and eating and drinking … all day long and well into the night.

It’s amazing to see how many horses with riders and horses with carriages and people walking can fit into the streets of the feria with no mishaps. I had the good fortune to take a “turn” around the feria in a carriage and the view from the middle of the traffic is even more impressive than watching it from the dusty sidewalks. This must be somewhat like the park driving of days gone by.

Without further ado, then, some images from the day. We go back for another full day today (and today is the city’s official holiday, so there should be even more people at the feria, if that’s possible), so there will be more photos still to come.

a family (with all the women in pink polka dots), arriving at the feria; this was early in the day, before the crowds packed the streets and sidewalks

a close-up of traditional Andalusian harness; I had a brief lesson from Raimundo in how the harness styles from Sevilla and Jerez are slightly different and how all the various colors should coordinate with certain parts on the carriage

the coachman whose harness you just saw; he is wearing traditional livery based on an 18th-century style

a close-up of an antique Spanish-built carriage several days before the feria; the carriage is owned by one of Raimundo's relatives and has been beautifully restored

... and the same carriage with passengers, before we set off for a turn around the feria

a line of carriages headed down the street; this was before things got really crowded

several little girls in blue and white

it's great fun to just find a spot in the shade and watch the spectacle pass by; the colors are fantastic

when they want to take a food or drink break, the riders line their horses up in rows, side by side, facing the sidewalk

For those you who haven’t yet read yesterday’s post, just skip this one … I’ve already fixed the caption. But if you have already read about the first night of feria, you will have seen the photo of me and Pepa with “El Tato.” As several people have pointed out since I posted the photo, I somehow got myself all turned around and was apparently unable to tell my left from my right (and no, it had nothing to do with any possible consumption of manzanilla at the feria the night before … although lack of sleep may have been to blame). At any rate, the caption is now correct and of course should have stated in the first place that the photo shows me on LEFT and Pepa on the RIGHT.  Ooops.

So I’ve discovered that it’s quite simple really to fly to Spain and not have to worry so much about trying to get over the jet lag if you just go with the Spanish timetable of life: breakfast in the mid-morning, lunch in the mid-afternoon, and dinner around 10:00 or 10:30. Then it’s off to bed around midnight (or 2:00 a.m. if there’s really something going on worth staying up for: a party, for example). I would never be able to stay up this late at home, but it’s not so bad when my internal clock is still set several hours earlier. The key to this, of course, is not having to get up at or before the crack of dawn like so many of us do at home!

At any rate, I spent much of yesterday morning playing with Raimundo and Pepa’s charming 2-year-old daughter. Then, in the early afternoon, I met Raimundo and several of his friends for a drink. This was accompanied by the ubiquitous (delicious!) serrano ham and manchego cheese, at a small bar in the Santa Cruz neighborhood. My guidebook says that the Bar de las Teresas, on one of the busiest crossroads in Santa Cruz, is “surprisingly authentic.” Raimundo said that it’s often very touristy now, but that when he was young, the customers were mostly local Sevillians. I felt like a complete tourist, taking these photos, while standing at the bar with Sevillians in business attire, chatting animatedly in Spanish, but here you go (at least I did this with the little, inconspicuous camera and not the “real” one):

the Bar de las Teresas is on a corner in Santa Cruz, and we were standing just inside the door at the corner of the bar; the man at the end is cutting thin slices of serrano ham

... and the view in the other direction; the walls are covered in tiles to about halfway up, with photos and old posters, etc. above; those are hams hanging from the ceiling

Later in the afternoon/early evening, I walked around to get a few more photos:

I've mentioned, haven't I, that there are beautiful tiles covering any and all available surfaces? I saw this delightful one on the side of a building

another out-of-the-way plaza, with a statue of Don Juan, who (I hadn't realized this) was from Sevilla

one of the narrow (but not the narrowest!) streets in Santa Cruz; behind the facade halfway down on the right, with the columns, is an amazing baroque church, with colorful paintings covering every available space on the walls and ceiling

Then (you remember the timetable I mentioned earlier, right?), I met Raimundo and Pepa at about 10 p.m., and we walked over to the feria, where I had kindly been invited to have dinner in one of the private casetas. Here, once again, we enjoyed a delicious succession of food and, for feria, manzanilla. At midnight, the lights came on and the feria was officially opened.

the lights are on and the feria has begun!

Once dinner was over, the tables were cleared away, the musicians set up in a corner, and the singing and dancing began. Watching everyone singing along to the traditional songs, clapping in time, and young and old dancing the flamenco-like Sevillana was great fun.

I don’t think I’ve showed my face on this blog till now, but I couldn’t resist getting my picture taken with the famous matador who came into the caseta to visit with friends (and have his photo taken with the ladies).

I must admit that I'm not familiar with the roster of famous bullfighters, but this is apparently one of them: that's me on the left and Pepa on the right, with "El Tato"

Today will be our first day at the feria, so stay tuned for photos of horses and carriages and ladies in flamenco dresses!

… sadly, this is starting to sound like a refrain.

Last year’s R.C.E.A. (Royal Andalusian Carriage Club) Carriage Exhibition in the bullring was cancelled because of rain, so our CAA group missed it entirely. This year, it was cancelled because of rain again. Although this time, I was standing around on the sidewalk with many of the drivers, owners, and R.C.E.A. members, and so I was able to see the one smartly turned out commercial turnout that trotted through (it would’ve been in the exhibtion but as there was none, kept right on going) and a lovely four-in-hand of mules. They stood in the rain for a while and then turned around and drove away. Then some men cam with a trailer and took away the barriers that had been blocking off the street so the horses and carriages could gather and line up on Calle Adriano (next to the bullring). I understand that the reason these are cancelled if there’s a lot of rain (which there has been these past few days) is not so much because of the rain itself, but because the combination of the rain/mud and the horses and carriages would turn the sand surface of the bullring into a major mess for the evening’s bullfight. Soooo … still no carriage exhibition. We’ll hope that my third try is the charm, and that we’ll actually be able to see it next year.

one of the beautiful mules in a four-in-hand that showed up (briefly) for the rained-out carriage exhibition

a detail of the (wet) Andalusian-style harness on one of the mules

It turned out to be a good thing that the exhibition was cancelled because, although the skies cleared briefly, the early afternoon featured torrential downpours and thunder. At that point, a group of us (R.C.E.A. members and guests, including myself and the exhibition judges) were safely inside the carriage museum of CAA member Miguel Angel Gutierrez Camarillo, where we had gone to see his beautiful collection of restored and original-condition vehicles. I’ll have more on his collection in an upcoming issue of The Carriage Journal, and at that point, I’ll use whatever photos we can’t fit into the magazine article for a blog post here.

a row of carriages in Miguel Angel's museum; we'll have more on his collection in an upcoming issue of the CJ and in a future blog post

After our visit, we had a nice, loooong lunch. It started, as you can see, with prawns, olives, and bread. The plate behind the bread (which you can’t really see) had tuna with roasted red peppers. Later, out came plates with two kinds of Spanish ham, and then after that: fried fish and fried calamari.

mmmm ... lunch

And, finally, before I sign off for tonight … some scenes from Saturday afternoon/evening’s walk-around:

you can see orange trees all over Sevilla

a lovely, peaceful scene, no?

it turns out that around 7 p.m. is a nice time to walk around the cathedral (or pretty much anywhere in the old part of town); the tourist attractions are closed (shops are open), but most of the other tourists are gone for the day - the bride in the lower left was one of five I saw on Saturday

We had a fair amount of rain here in Sevilla yesterday (Friday) afternoon. But there are few places more peaceful on a warm-ish, rainy day than the covered edge of an open-air Spanish courtyard while rain falls into the center.

I spent part of yesterday afternoon investigating a few lovely places for next year’s CAA trip … either to suggest that people visit on their own or for perhaps arranging a group visit if they’re more out of the way. If I haven’t mentioned it before (or even if I have) let me state that the narrow, twisting roads here in the old parts of the city are quite confusing unless you’re really good at reading maps (and street signs that don’t exist or that don’t look like street signs) or unless you’re very familiar with the route. Luckily, it doesn’t take too long to start getting familiar with it all.

At any rate, a few courtyards to entice you …

a traditional Andalusian courtyard ...

... and another; or the flower-lined balcony at least ...

... and a third, although this is admittedly less typical because the floor in the center is an authentic Roman mosaic at the private museum Palacios de Lebrija

a close-up of the staircase in the background of the photo above, with beautiful old Spanish tiles covering nearly every available surface

the Palacios de Lebrija was the project of a 19th-century Sevillian aristocratic woman with a passion for archaeology and collecting; she gathered Roman mosaics and all sorts of pottery, including Roman, Moorish, Visigothic, pre-Columbian, Chinese, and even a huge set of English Spode dishes; the walls of one room are lined with very old tiles like these, depicting early views of Sevilla

I also worked with our friend Raimundo on a preliminary list of possible carriage collections to view on our CAA trip next spring. In the evening, we all went to a dinner hosted by the Royal Andalusian Carriage Club (in preparation for their carriage exhibition in the bullring tomorrow – the 25th of these beautiful exhibitions). I was re-acquainted with people I’d met last year and met even more. Everyone is extraordinarily welcoming, and we should have another wonderful group of collectors and collections to visit in 2011.

Tomorrow is the carriage exhibition in the bullring, where I’ll be taking lots of photos, and hoping that the predicted rain doesn’t fall!