Sensuous Seville

International Living Postcards-- your daily escape

Thursday, June 22, 2006
Seville, Spain

Dear International Living Reader,

Her voice was dark, with the fluidity of the Guadalquivir River. Her eyes were nearly closed, as if recalling a painful memory. She sang with intensity and the strength in her voice was conspicuous, the sound resonating, penetrating the tavern.

The emotional and physical center of Andalucia, Seville's voice is as provocative as the city's surroundings. It wails and sobs, laughs, and cries out, in discontent as well as utter joy. It begs you to stay and urges you to leave. Yet you are compelled to stay...to walk its cobbled streets, dark narrow alleyways, and medieval lanes...to linger in the romantic hidden plazas, glistening with the warmth of the sun and soaked in the scent of orange blossoms. So you stay.

Your days take on a comforting routine as you settle into your new Andalucian lifestyle, which has redefined joie de vivre and made an art form of it. You rise late in the morning and slip into a neighborhood bar around the corner to take your first meal of the day: freshly squeezed orange juice, café con leche (coffee with milk), and toasted bread with a sumptuous paste of delectable tomatoes. After breakfast it's into the shadow of La Giralda, Spain's loftiest tower. With its grand size and ostentatious play of arabesque arches, it's the perfect display of Seville's romantic and excessive nature. Her Cathedral is no different, looming impressively, the third largest in Europe.

Wandering through the Cathedral to the top of La Giralda, the sheer immensity of it all is dazzling. The art and architecture is as complex as the city--Roman, Islamic, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque...it's a mixture that never fails to excite with its richness, depth of form, and flavor.

This sense of awe is reinforced when you enter the breathtaking Alcazar, Europe's oldest palace, still used as a private residence for Spanish royalty. Its Moorish architecture and lush gardens are spectacular. From the Alcazar, make your way along the Guadalquivir, stroll idly through lush Maria Luisa Park, a paradise-like half-mile of palms and orange trees. Then settle into a picnic lunch of pan de campo (a simple country bread), manchego cheese, a few thin succulent slices of cured ham, and a small bottle of sherry while taking in the gardens, the birdsong, and the intoxicating scent of jasmine.

You take your siesta in the park, assured that the city is sleeping at this hour, so there is no pressure to be anywhere or do anything for the next few hours. But at night, Seville is a city of extroverts, open and convivial, reveling in good food, drink, conversation, and flamenco. On this particular night, you find yourself at La Carboneria, a converted coal yard in the Barrio Santa Cruz, which promises live flamenco performances nightly. Flamenco epitomizes the complex soul of Seville, with its Arab, gypsy, and Oriental influences mingling to produce this extraordinary sound, which in its rawest, most authentic state is a spontaneous outburst late at night in a backstreet bar. The word "flamenco" probably derives from the Arabic " felag mengu," meaning "fugitive peasant."

Its baile (dance) is a combination of mesmerizing footwork and lovely floreo, or flowering of the hands. Its toque (guitar) is made up of ancestral footprints of Indian, Jewish, Arabic, ancient Andalucian and gypsy sounds, blended together in the bittersweet song of strings, falsetas, and phrygian scales. Its cante (song) is superb poetry. Tonight the singer treats the audience to a cante jondo, or deep song. It is the oldest form, in which the singer's emotional expression is more important than tonal clarity. He sings of abandoned ruins and olive groves, taking us to places where the past and present coexist, where gypsies dance and sing the sufferings, joys, and defiance of their race. Lament and laughter flow into the same mold. You realize it's this flickering ambiguity that defines Seville. She is flamenco. Harsh and tender, free, and confined. Like the fine wine born of the fertile lands around her, she will tempt you with one taste, and keep you coming back for more.

Aimee Hughes
For International Living