After two days in Malaga we continue our journey to Sevilla "Seville," wrote Byron, "is a pleasant city, famous for oranges and women." And for its heat, he might perhaps have added, since SEVILLA 's summers are intense and start early, in May. But the spirit, for all its nineteenth-century chauvinism, is about right. Sevilla has three important monuments and an illustrious history, but what it's essentially famous for is its own living self - the greatest city of the Spanish south, of Carmen, Don Juan and Figaro, and the archetype of Andalucian promise. This reputation for gaiety and brilliance, for theatricality and intensity of life, does seem deserved. It's expressed on a phenomenally grand scale at the city's two great festivals - Semana Santa (in the week before Easter) and the Feria de Abril (which starts two weeks after Easter Sunday and lasts a week). Either is worth considerable effort to get to.
The restaurants offer a great variety of meals so tasty that you have to experience yourself to believe it. Get adventurous and take the trip, after all you deserve it. But Seville has other attractions without such grand history. Two great festivals set the population afire each year: the Semana Santa, during the week before Easter, and the April Fair, which lasts a week at the end of the month. The April Fair is particularly raucous, with flamenco dancers in colorful folk costumes lining the streets and daily bullfighting competitions. The fictional spirits of Carmen and Don Juan, who originated in Seville, are invoked for delirious fair-goers.
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