Last week was our first spring break, taken because it was Semana Santa (Easter week), and Sevilla has arguably the grandest celebration in the world. About 8 times a day during the week, a brotherhood that forms a parade of hooded figures (exactly like the KKK) and carries two grand displays (one of their Virgin and one of Christ), will leave from their neighborhood church, walk to the Grand Cathedral, walk through the streets of Sevilla, and then return back to their neighborhood. The displays are elaborate, with gold and silver framework that takes months and months to make and employs people throughout the year.
Here's a picture of grandstands set up in preparation for the week:
These brotherhoods ("cofradias") make up the back bone of the social structure of Sevilla, and have many functions from supporting the needy, maintaining and reinforcing Sevilla's identity and the identity of it's inhabitants, and forming a network for goods and services. Although everything leaves from churches and appears very very religious, it is only a religious festival for some. For most, it is a celebration of the Andalucian identity and the coming of Spring. And the Spanish love it. Everywhere you went during the week there would be people commenting on the beauty of the processions, and luckily, I got to experience a few days of it with my mom and sister, who visited me for the week. We spent Friday through Monday in Sevilla, Tuesday and Wednesday in Granada, and Thursday through Sunday in Barcelona.
This blog probably won't have as much commentary for the pictures as some because the best part of the week for me was definately just spending time with my mom and sister, and catching up with them over walks and meals.
Nonetheless we did do a lot in the week in terms of seeing sights.
Their flight was delayed Friday from Madrid, so we lost a day there. However after settling into our apartment near the Alameda of Hercules (a great neighborhood that I didn't know very well beforehand), we took a walk through the history part of Sevilla, where I spend a lot of time, and went to a tapas bar called Levies, where we had some great spinach croquetas, spanish tortilla, and sangria. Afterwards, we went to flamenco at my favorite spot, Carboneria and we all had a great time.
Saturday, we headed straight for the Cathedral...
Next, we spent the early afternoon in the Real Alcazar, where we saw the ornate Mudejar interiors:
The interior reflecting pool:
We finished off our day of the Sevilla must-sees with a walk through the plaza de Espana...
And then ended at Parque de Maria Luisa. Exhausted from the day, we ate a late dinner and relaxed for the rest of the night in the apartment.
Day 2 brought an roughly unintentional church tour where we started off at the Basilica of Macarena:
Then hit up the church of San Miguel:
Here's an up close look at the virgin in San Miguel before taking her path through the streets:
We had a nice and slow lunch on the way, and then headed for the church of San Salvador, one of the grandest churches in Sevilla, and also known popularly by young folk for the adjacent plaza of the same name that's one of the most popular places to drink outside. We however were going to see the first official procession of the week, La Borriquita, which celebrates the little burro Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem. Since it's kind of the kick-off, it's very popular, especially for children, and the crowd or "bulla" as they call it got bigger and bigger until we couldn't move and were baking in the hot sun. I can't say my mom and sister enjoyed it as much as I did, but we could all appreciate the work that goes into making these processions happen, and we can attest to the enthusiasm with which the Spaniards view them.
Here are the Nacareno's, made up of the brothers of the cofradia:
And the crowd:
And the man himself:
By the end of of first official procession, we were exhausted and headed straight for the river for a drink and hopefully a nice breeze. Luckily after weaving our way through the crowds, we found both and had a nice afternoon catching up and watching all the Spaniards move about in their finest clothing.
Later on, we took a tour of the bull arena in Sevilla:
We took some time to freshen up and then wandered through the still enormous crowds and found a classic Sevilla restaurant for dinner. We tried the cured ham for which Andalucia is famous, and I learned once again that olive oil with bread is not as popular here as you would think. They're more into whole olives, which are fine with me.
On Monday we had my favorite meal in a while, a great lunch in a small cafe, where we had coffee, wine, fresh salads, and a great chocolate dessert, and watched it rain for a bit outside on the Alameda. I know this blog is a little listy due to the sheer mass of everything we did, but I can't say enough how good it was to just be with my family for the first time in 2 months, and just talking with them was the highlight of my week.
After the rain subsided, we did some of the obligatory tourist shopping, and watched another procession. This one depicted the kiss of betrayal from Judas in the garden of Gethsemane.
And here's their Virgin:
During the afternoon, we sat by the river and watched the slowest procession ever! But we had a nice spot by the river so it didn't matter to us.
That night we ran into another procession on a long long roundabout walk we took to find a suitable restaurant (of which there are plenty)...
And then we ended up having some of the best food I've ever tasted. Han had squid with a passion fruit sauce, mom had duck, and I had suckling pig.
I should note that although I didn't take any pictures of it, 3 different times we had ice cream from a place on Alameda, and the pistachio they had there was absolutely incredible.
Tuesday morning we hopped on an early bus to Granada, and drove over the rolling hills of olive trees and small lakes with wild flamingos.
Our hotel in Granada turned out to be in a great location, and almost 500 years old. We threw our stuff down and then had a nice lunch on a nearby plaza. Next, we visited the mausoleum of Ferdinand and Isabel, and walked around on the main streets for a while. After a lunch consisting of delicious tea, we made our way downhill to see the Granada cathedral, which was absolutely spectacular. It was my mom's favorite church, and the big white columns and plentitude of natural light make it much more brighter than the cathedral in Sevilla.
Honestly, you can't grasp the size of these cathedrals with pictures so make everything a lot bigger in your imagination.
Later that day I decided to have an ice cream, which was again incredible, and after a small meal I decided...to have an ice cream.
Though it took about a half hour to get there by taxi (the streets were blocked because Granada also has processions all week), during which I thought my mom was going to kill me, we finally made it up to the oldest district in Granada, Barrio Albaycin, the old Muslim quarter, where we wandered through the white buildings and took in some spectacular views.
It was getting late so we found some stairs down the mountain, which happened to lead perfectly to a recognizable gate...
...which took us back to the main part of Granada where we had a very nice dinner, and spent the night deleting facebook friends, a new hobby of mine. If you're reading this, you're probably safe. Probably.
Wednesday in Granada we went to the La Alhambra fortress, which Frommer's describes as "arguably the most impressive fortress in the world". I've already blogged about it but this time I did learn the interesting fact that the French occupied the fort during their invasion of Spain, and looted and destroyed a lot of it. Though bad news for La Alhambra, this was good news for me as I've been looking for reasons to dislike the French again after an incredible time in Paris (Paris day 2 coming soon).
After that period, La Alhambra was largely forgotten about, even by the people of Granada, over which it had loomed for almost 1000 years. Luckily the romantic poets and writers and hippies moved into corners, stables, and courtyards of the fortress during the end of the 19th century (including Washington Irving who lived in a tower), and they brought it back to life with fire-lit story telling and flamenco performances by gypsies they shared the fortress with.
Here are some pictures of the fortress:
Later that night we had dinner and then absolutely crashed. My mom and I went outside around 11 to watch a procession which was literally right outside our hotel.
Here's a Virgin with La Alhambra looming up in the distance:
And now, BARCELONA
After a short flight thursday morning, we arrived in Barcelona. Starting off, we took a big blue bus tour...
...where we saw some amazing architecture of Antoni Gaudi, a Barcelona native whose work is heavily influenced by nature and generally looks like sand castle work mixed with gingerbread houses. Here's one of his buildings, La Pedrera, with is modeled after the waves of the sea.
And here's another Gaudi work, Casa Batllo (the one on the right), which is made to look like the scales and jaws of a dragon.
This is Plaza Catalunya, which was really close to our hotel and always crowded with people, really stylish people.
Up north we hopped off the tour and went to a park designed by Gaudi, Park Gruel, which overlooks the entire city.
The entrance gates:
The main staircase up:
Cool cave-like walk under another walkway:
Great view:
After a little rest stop at the hotel, we went to Gaudi's church, La Sagrada Familia, which began construction in 1882 and continues to this day. The projected finished date is 30 years from now, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's a little too soon. There are 6 towers built out of a total of 18 (12 apostles, 4 evangelists, Mary, and Jesus), and the tower of Jesus is going to be 70 meters taller than any existing tower (and it will emit bright colors in all directions). This immediately became my favorite church ever although it is still lacking most details on the interior and an entire facade on the exterior, as well as the other towers.
I really liked the newer facade which focuses on the Passion:
But the other facade is very cool depicting Christ's birth:
You can probably tell from the Passion facade but the art and figures throughout the church are very modern and give everything a very surreal feel. Inside, it feels like the roof is literally in the heavens, and I love the main column supports which are modeled to look like trees
Also, the stained glass adds modern appeal and bright colors to a tradition in Catholic churches that's persisted for a thousand years.
The dimensions of this building are so astronomical (and not even close to the finished product), that I could not take it all in whatsoever when I stood there, so of all the things I've blogged about, this is the most impossible to display with pictures. You really should google image it and get glimpses of the tops of the towers as well as better high up interior views. It's a little early to give away hints of my Europe top 10 list, but this will definately be there.
Thursday night we were pretty tired but made it out to a Catalan flamenco show, which was really enjoyable, but not quite as aggressive as those of Sevilla. We could tell very quickly in contrast to Sevilla, which is as Spanish as it gets, Barcelona is the definition of an international city. Some flamenco:
The next morning we walked down the famous La Rambla street, which was literally always crowded with thousands of people...
...and then we made our way to the Gothic Quarter, which is the oldest part of Barcelona. There we saw the beautiful cathedral, where the choir was actually singing latin hymns from the cloister:
Then we saw the ruins of the Temple of Augustus, which was constructed during the life of Christ:
And thirdly we made our way to another cathedral, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Mar, which was cool...but...after seeing the amazing cathedrals like Sagrada Familia, Notre Dame, and those of Sevilla and Granada, this wasn't anything mind-blowing.
...although it did have some nice stained-glass:
After checking out the oldest part of Barcelona, we grabbed the nearest blue bus and headed out towards the ocean, where Barcelona redeveloped a large part of the city for the 1992 olympics. The sun was out and although the wind was howling, we were definately enjoying the proximity to the sea.
Although I love how everything in Sevilla looks (and is) old, Barcelona has art everywhere, and in the newer districts the modern art really takes the focus off the big city and knits everything together nicely.
Some art that doubles as a lane divider:
This is called David and Goliath, and I'm thinking that David's so small you can only see the path of his slingshot:
And finally we have the work entitled, "Woman and Bird":
Cool modern building:
Another great thing about Barcelona is the wide open plazas. In the modernista section every corner is cut off the buildings to make plazas at literally every intersection, and whether it's art or fountains, it adds a very open feel to an enormous city.
Another great fountain:
Towards the end of the bus tour we went through the Olympic hill where we went into the grand stadium (which wasn't really that grand)...
Although there was proof of its grandeur when THE BOSS came to town:
The torch:
Later on, we went to the Picasso Museum, which traced the artist's evolution. I'm not a big art guy and the first two art galleries I've payed attention to were the Louvre and Orsay in Paris, so I'm doomed to a life of disappointment when it comes to art. Nonetheless, the Picasso museum was cool because Picasso donated most of the works and most of them had nothing to do with the cubism style he's now known for.
One of his early works:
The real highlight of the day came after Picasso, when we wandered around in search for crepes and happened to find the most quaint crepe shop in Barcelona. Fact. There was just one (beautiful) girl working the crepe wheel and between the crepes and the employee, there was a lot to be excited about.
Saturday we went to the Art Museum of Catalunya, which is in this magnificent building:
With this magnificent view:
And this magnificent room:
And this magnificent art:
The museum really was very interesting, but Hannah and I were just a little tired, and were really happy to take in some famous Barcelona Cava (champagne) outside the museum overlooking the city.
Saturday night was an absolute blast because we went to the FC Barcelona (arguably the best team in the world) vs. Atletica (much worse) soccer game. For a very unfair matchup, the atmosphere was still incredible, and you could tell from the get-go that Barcelona is absolutely unreal.
Two pictures after a goal:
The action shot:
Pre-game:
Barcelona was 4-1 and afterwards 100,000 happy campers filed out into the streets. We walked all the way home, taking in the warm evening air as well as each other. I've missed my family a lot while being over here, but spending time with my mom and sister for a week made me really excited to go big here for another 2 months and then go home to see everybody.
Sunday was a rainy rainy Easter in Barcelona, so we of course spent the morning walking in the rain down by the harbor, but then ingeniously found a great restaurant for lunch when the sun came out.
I said goodbye to them Sunday night and flew back to Sevilla, grateful for the week that was.
Wow. This really has been a novel. But every novel needs an...EPILOGUE...
The flight back was the best plane ride of my life. We took off around 7:30 and landed at 9:00, which means we were in flight perfectly during the sunset. In fact, we literally rode the sunset home. It was like an hour-long sunset filled with the most vivid pinks, purples, reds, and blues you could imagine, and the colors were so thick it was lick we were flying through some dreamy Tim Burton film. An Easter memory I won't soon forget.
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