7 March: my birthday! (part 1)

We awoke on my 40th birthday full of the joys of almost spring! The first thing we had to do, after all the usual ablutions, was to check out of our somewhat unsatisfactory room and into the upgrade we'd been promised. We couldn't actually check back in because the room was being prepared, but we left our cases at reception and went out for some breakfast at our regular haunt for this stay, Las Columnas.



After that, we went for a bit of a walk around. It was Sunday morning and quiet on the streets. Until, that is, we came upon a fairly peculiar sight. First, we saw a man getting his head wrapped in something resembling a turban. A glance slightly further down the road revealed more young men similarly adorned. Then there was a huge box-like contraption with several men beneath it (see pic above). I think at about this point we sussed what was going on, and a chat with an Englishman standing nearby (it turns out he used to be a tour guide here) confirmed our thoughts: these chaps were rehearsing for the Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebrations, during which they will be required to carry through the streets of the city a float-type object, upon which will stand a representation of a figure related to their religious brotherhood (hermandad). The tour-guide man told us that this practice box, like the real thing, weighs a ton (literally) and is supported by 35 men in seven rows of five.

We stood watching them for a while, fascinated by the less-than-snail-pace speed at which they moved and the even slower rate at which they manoeuvred around corners, shuffling their feet slightly to one side and ever so slightly forward, all together like one enormous and ungainly 70-legged beetle... Amazing.



Continuing our walk, we headed for the Alameda de Hercules, a long, thin rec area famed for its café culture (isn't all of Europe?!). En route, we stopped to take pictures of buildings and other things that caught our eye, as always, including the exterior of a convent, the Monasterio de Santa Iñes, secreted in a doored courtyard down a quiet street. Sometimes you just have to step inside some of these doorways, even if it looks like they might be closed to the public. What's the worst that can happen? You get told to move on? It's worth the risk. And incidentally, it never happened once that we were told to move on. The courtyard itself was something and nothing, but some of the decoration on the building was lovely if not outstanding. What was a unique touch (for us, anyway) was the little "hole in the wall" from which the nuns sold the sweet delights they made. Since this particular order is silent (cloistered), they deal with these sales through a little hatch, beside which a price list is posted (see pic above, and click it for a close look at the price list). So cool!

We passed through several little plazas and streets, invariably finding new tiles of devotion to saints and Jesus, pausing to photograph as many of them as we could. There must be thousands across the city, and although this was our third visit, I don't recall paying them much heed in the past. That's why I love going back to the same places a few times: you can ignore some of the things you've done previously and look for new diversions.

I also like looking out for tattoo shops, rarely if ever with the intention of getting tattooed, but I do like to pop in and look at the work they do or see how busy it is. While still walking we came upon Sevilla Tattoo, funnily enough on a street called Amor de Dios; sadly it was closed -- not surprising, I guess, since it was still only about 11:30am on a Sunday.


When we finally arrived at Alameda de Hercules, it was pretty quiet. We took pictures of the twin columns (above) at the end where we entered and strolled along the middle of the alameda (which means a "promenade where poplar trees grow", apparently). Not much was going on, but we did stumble upon yet another group of young men practising for Semana Santa, doing their centipede thing. It was great to see such devotion early on a slightly miserable Sunday morning (it had been raining on and off), when most of these guys might well have preferred to be playing some football.



At the far end of the alameda, I was stopped in my tracks. Two years ago (to the day as I write this), I blogged about a certain tattooer called Lucio. And here, now, in front of my very eyes, was his shop in Seville. (Seems I was slightly wrong about his location in that earlier post; he actually has shops both here and in Càdiz.) But goddamn if the shop wasn't closed! Had to take a pic, though; after all, this guy is mythically tied up with my own Seville history.



So we left the Alameda de Hercules behind us and continued, the attention of our walk now to be the Cathedral of the Macarena. Walking our side-street walk, it took us about 20 minutes from Lucio's shop. Unfortunately it was absolutely packed, standing room only, for the service that going on, so while we were able to enter and see some of its beauty, we couldn't really take any pictures or fully bathe in its majesty. We vowed to return and headed out, following the sound of a brass band to see what was going on.





What was going on was a practice session for mostly teenage boys with drums and trumpets. These kids would doubtless be following one of the floats come Semana Santa -- probably the Macarena one, given their proximity to that cathedral right now. As Red doubtless rightly pointed out, it seems Semana Santa has a job for all able-bodied males in this city. Incredible! We stood enjoying the band for about 15 minutes, and by now the sun was starting to beat down. Finally. Knowing we'll get burned in the time it would take to walk back to the town centre, we opted for a cab back to the Cerveceria Giralda.

I confess that I'm not sure what we ate, but I might come back and edit that in if I have a record anywhere. All I know is that it was about 1:30pm by the time we were at lunch and we had a 4pm appointment booked at the baños árabes. There would be no problem making that, but we just had to bear in mind that we needed to make a trip back to the hotel and get into our new room and pick up our swimwear for the baños.

To be continued...

6 March: part 2

Where was I? Ah, yes, it's the afternoon of our first full day in Seville, and after a light snack we headed off to the Macarena area. Unfortunately, things went a little pear-shaped at this point, with the weather still not great and, having left the hotel without any guidebooks, something of an inability to find much in the way of interesting streets.

We decided, therefore, to regroup at a restaurant we've been to before: El Rinconcillo, which we were able to find easily enough, thanks to Red's pretty good sense of direction. I'm shit at that stuff! However, as is often the case with great eateries (often, but not always; more on that later), it was rammed. So we left there and headed instead in the general direction of the Casa de Pilatos, figuring that we could eat at somewhere that took our fancy en route.



And that's what we did, having found a cool little tapas bar called Taberna Peregil, which was showing religious processions on a loop on the small TV above the doorway (see pic, above). We ordered a grilled cheese on toast with caramelized onions to share, followed by Iberico sausage for me and salted tuna to share. Red had some water, while I drank beer, which I chased with a Manzanilla sherry. It all came to just shy of €20 -- and payment of the bill resulted in the ringing of a large bell and a "Vaya con Dios!" as we left -- excellent!

The Casa de Pilatos is just a couple of minutes' walk from the tapas bar, but since it was 4pm when we arrived, it seemed a touch late to go in, given that it closes at 6pm, so we wandered slowly back towards Santa Cruz, debating where to eat that evening and the next day. Yes, we like to eat when on holiday!

When you walk a city all day long, instead of jumping in cabs or on buses, you really see it properly. And Seville is one of those cities that is just filled with amazing sights everywhere. Even some of the entrance ways to hotels are picture-worthy! Once back in "the Cruz", as we don't call it, we visited Los Gallos, a flamenco club, to book tickets for the following night, and then we hit up the hotel for a bit of a break. It was now about 6pm, and the T-shirt I'd tried washing and drying that morning was still wet and still stinky.



We decided, after not too long in the room, that we'd take a walk to see if a certain Argentine restaurant that we had visited last time was still open. I'd eaten the most amazing burger there, and we'd got chatting to the waitress, who was Sicilian. Sadly, it seemed to have changed hands. Damn, I was really jonesing for an awesome burger. Instead we went to what might quickly be becoming our fave tapas bar, Casa Placido, with its hams hanging from the ceiling, just around the corner from the hotel. We just wanted to take the edge off the hunger a bit, rather than have dinner proper, so we had a couple of tapas of huevos a la flamenca. So good!





And then we returned once again to the hotel to get changed and ready to go out to dinner at Mesón Casa Luciano, on the other side of the river. Since this is quite a walk, we had the hotel receptionist call to make sure it was still in business and open tonight. Success! We always fear Luciano's might go out of business because it's almost always empty, and yet it serves the most incredible food, as long as you are feeling fully carnivorous. We have seen other people in there, but rarely. And when the locals do turn up, it's usually very late. And tourists rarely seem to venture there, since it's not in many guidebooks, it seems.

We got there at 9:35pm, and it was empty, just as we might have predicted. But the same two waiting staff were on hand -- an older dude and a woman -- neither of whom seem to speak any English. But this has always been part of the huge amount of fun of Luciano's: struggling to understand what each other means. This time, we'd taken some Spanish lessons for a few months in advance of our trip, and we were better prepared all round, but it was still crazy trying to communicate.

We ordered a salad to start, followed by a steak each and a portion of chips to share. I ordered a beer to start; Red, a water; and we had a half-bottle of Ramón Bilbao Tempranillo Crianza to share. I went to the butchery counter at the back of the restaurant to choose our steaks. I love that! While we were waiting, they brought us some complimentary chorizo and bread. Mmmm....

The food, as ever here, was just awesome. The steaks were cooked "a punto", I think the Spanish was, meaning "properly", and not well done or any other bastardization some folks inflict upon their steak to rid it of blood, flavour, and tenderness. This was great, melt-in-the-mouth meat.

Too full to tackle a dessert, I was -- again, as ever -- offered a shot of pacharán to finish, which I happily accepted. Such a lovely liqueur... By this time, it was about 11:15pm, and still the place is empty. Why?! It's Saturday night -- this place should be heaving. During the course of dinner, the door did open and someone stuck a head inside. They didn't look round far enough to see us. Not that it mattered; I suspect they decided it must be shite because it was empty. Bad decision, amigo.

Walking back to the hotel, we went via the Plaza de Santa Cruz and spent 10 minutes or so in the company of one of the neighbourhood cats. We know the streets are in safe hands with this one on patrol!



And just a bit further on, we stopped in Lope de Rueda at midnight to celebrate the start of my birthday with a kiss. Of course, it's still another hour until my birthday in the UK, so on returning to the hotel (the courtyard of which is shown below), we had to stay up a bit longer just to get it right.

6 March: The first full day

So, back to Seville... Woke up at 7:40am after a night of heavy rain and massive thunder. I spent a good 10 minutes washing and trying to dry my Gallows Grey Britain T-shirt, which was uncharacteristically stinky after a day's travelling. I'm not really much of a sweater, but humping luggage and running from place to place in the overheated airports wearing a heavy-ish coat clearly took its toll. We both got showered and dressed ready for the day ahead (my last day in my 30s!), and then we would go off and talk to reception about our bed situation (remember?). Checked my watch just before heading down... Shit! It's 10:20am. How did that happen?! Ah, forgot to put my phone's clock to Spanish time.

I mentioned it was my birthday, we were disappointed about the beds not being a double, etc, and reception told us that they would upgrade us from tomorrow to their superior suite. There was no mention of extra cost, just that we should get all packed up in the morning and go down and see him again. Cool.

So then we set off, pausing in the hotel doorway to don our "Jack in a Pack", since it was pissing with rain. Fab. And then we made our way to a bar for some breakfast. This first day we settled on a place we'd never been before, Bodega Santa Cruz Las Columnas, which is opposite and a little way up the road from usual haunt Cerveceria Giralda. We each had tostada (toasted bread) with aceite (olive oil) and tomate (or salsa de tomate, a tomato sauce but not like ketchup!); a coffee (con leche for me, manchado for Red); and a glass of OJ between us. It's always great just watching these guys in Spanish bars working. Any Spanish bar I've ever been in is essentially the same in this one regard: it's like a super-well-oiled machine. So fast and efficient, they totally put the UK service industry to shame.

Breakfast done, we next made our way to the Aire de Seville baños árabes (Arab baths) to book a slot for tomorrow, my birthday proper. The baños árabes played a key part in my choosing Seville as the destination for my 40th birthday: that's how fucking great it is. It seemed a slight blow that we couldn't get anything earlier than 4pm, but only for a moment. Thing is, once you've had a lunch on Spanish time, it's almost 4pm anyway! Plus we have to do all that checking out and back in nonsense tomorrow, too...

The rain continuing unabated made us think we should take some indoors time for a couple of hours, so we opted to do something else we'd never done yet in Seville: visit the Archivo General de Indias (the General Archive of the Indies). This absolutely massive structure is surprisingly anonymous from the outside. Indeed, we've walked past it probably hundreds of times hardly giving it a glance but knowing what it was called, even if we didn't really know what it was or even whether it was open to the public. One of the guides we had mentioned that it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so we figured we should check it out finally.

First things first, as a Brit abroad (and I know it's slightly unfair to say this latterly, given there have been changes as regards our galleries in the past 10 years), it still takes me aback that there are some important places you simply don't have to pay to enter. We had to put our stuff through an x-ray machine first. (Spain is very good on anti-terrorist measures, even here in Andalucía, which is apparently the European hub of al-Qaeda, so they probably needn't worry: who shits on their own doorstep?) And then, once through, they gave us a little guide thing and said to head on up the stairs.


Well, the stairwell itself (above) is a thing of some majesty! You know it's huge. You're on it, and you know it's big, but somehow you don't really get a sense of quite how big until you take a picture of yourself on it, dwarfed by its vastness. Really. (Actually in the image above, at the bottom right, you can see a fire extinguisher by way of scale.)

There are, of course, the eponymous archives of billions (probably) of papers and documentation, which itself is astonishing, with all these identical box files behind lockable grilles (check the locks among the images at the end of this post) and on beautiful bookcases, but also on display are maps and items brought back from historic voyages of centuries past -- the times when we in Europe were off globetrotting and killing natives and taking their land... Bringing civilization to tribespeople on the other side of the world and offing them if they weren't interested. You know, all that good stuff.

And there's also a little room where a film plays on a loop, chronicling the history of the archive, as well as of the building itself, which was totally fascinating. It's incredible to think that such a jaw-dropping architectural beauty could ever have been converted into a tenement building, but that was exactly what had happened at some point in its past. Unbelievable. Thankfully, you would never know, looking at it today.

We took pictures where we could, but in one whole big room it was not permitted, which was a shame. I couldn't really see the problem, though I know a lot of places with historic ephemera have concerns about the use of flash. I wish they could just have a "no flash" policy instead, if that's the case. I fired off one quick shot in the forbidden room (see right), being all nonchalant and avoiding as much as possible the eye-in-the-sky security camera. Ooh, I'm such a rebel! And after that, while in a different area, I got told off for putting my camera on top of a glass case. I mean, really? My camera (I didn't take my dSLR for space reasons) weighs little more than a wallet. Do me a favour, mate!

All done there by about 1pm, we next hit the bakery just opposite: the Horno San Buenaventura. This is a hugely popular tourist trap, yes, simply because it is massive and has lots of tables and chairs. But there are plenty of locals, too, due to the wide range of top-quality baked goods on offer. And of course, if you stay at the bar, like a local, rather than taking a seat, like a tourist, you pay less for your purchases. I had a café solo (an espresso) and a tocino de cielo. I think Red just had some water. The sugary gorgeousness of the tocino and the caffeine kick of the espresso would keep me walking until lunchtime (which was now, really, but since we'd had such a late breakfast...)

Off we trotted, then, to the Macarena area of the city. But I'll save that for the next post... Meantime, here are some pics from the Archivo General.