12/4: Sevilla's Plaza de Espana: Most Beautiful Square Ever & Flamenco Show

I just returned from being away on vacation with a friend in New Zealand and Australia for the last 3.5 weeks. In case you also want to follow that trip, here's a link to the newest blog: www.bergersadventures7.blogspot.com 

We'd spent the morning admiring Sevilla's superb Alcazar, the fantastic royal palace and garden decorated with wondrous Islamic flair. Our afternoon was dedicated to relaxing at Plaza de Espana before enjoying a flamenco concert in the evening. Sevilla is a fantastic city for people who enjoy walking so it was a delight strolling through the lively Universidad de Sevilla en route to the plaza. 

The charming Parque de Maria Luisa and the plaza comprised the 1929 international fair, "where for a year the Spanish-speaking countries of the world enjoyed a mutual admiration fiesta," according to travel writer Rick Steves. 

The plaza looked like a smaller version of Venice with canals surrounding the most beautiful square we've ever seen in the world.

The park's highlight was the former Spanish Pavilion and its tiles, a hallmark of Sevilla, depicted historic scenes and maps from every province of Spain arranged in alphabetical order from Aragon to Zaragoza.

Being avid readers, we loved the fact that people had left books to read on the shelves beside each seat. I wonder who had the brilliant idea of having a free library here? Plaudits indeed to whomever that was. 

Hope none of our family nor friends wanted fans as a souvenir because we didn't bring any back but simply admired the ones we saw for sale!

 It was so much fun discovering the places we'd visited throughout the last six weeks or so we'd been in Spain.

In addition to being one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen anywhere, this rounded square was also a set of Star Wars - Planet Naboo. I could certainly see why Plaza de Espana had been voted one of the best things to visit in the world on Trip Advisor. It was very impressive and so much fun just wandering around in addition to being a photographer's dream!

I think this must be the last photo I took of Steven with his backpack. You'll see why below!

The logo for the 1929 World's Fair:

We parked ourselves on one of the many benches that surrounded the interior of the park as we were absolutely content to watch the world go by.

Set into the semicircle was an enclosed waterway where people could hire a boat and simply float around enjoying the changing views of the buildings, and the comings and goings of the horse-drawn carriages with their tourists. 

I was pretty sure that the string of carriages going around the fountain and the square each held only Asian tourists for some reason.

Evidently I was too engrossed in watching the carriages in front of us and the boats behind us and Steven had his eyes glued reading his Kindle for the first time all trip and had put his backpack to his right on the ground beside him. I am sure you can guess what happened next - we'll never be sure how it happened but somehow his backpack was stolen. The most valuable item in it was his iPad but he also lost his raincoat and other stuff. Almost exactly a year previously Steven had had his shoes, glasses, etc stolen from right beside him on the beach in Valparaiso, Chile. In both cases, it could have been so much worse - it was just 'stuff' that was taken and we weren't harmed fortunately. Plus, we had a whole other day before leaving Spain to buy a new backpack and an iPad. 

Rick Steves warned tourists in his travel book to pay special attention in Plaza de Espana as it was a classic haunt of thieves and con artists and to trust no one. Being sophisticated world travelers, we thought that we'd exercised caution but it just proved you can never be too careful. Once we got up to leave and noticed the backpack was missing, we searched in vain in all the square's garbage cans hoping the thief might have dumped the backpack at least. What a bummer when something like that happens when you travel; it was sort of ironic that in Barcelona, the first city we visited in Spain beginning way back on October 25th, somebody slashed my poncho to get to my backpack on an escalator coming up from the metro, and here we were in our last city in Spain and something happened again. 

Before leaving the square, we were lucky to catch some great flamenco street performers. The musical and dance performance were equally riveting and were the perfect taste treat for the show we were looking forward to seeing in a few hours.

I couldn't resist taking a few last photos of what I am convinced is the most beautiful square anywhere. 

I like this photo Steven took of me although Imelda Marcos wouldn't have approved of my shoes!

I'm sure Steven felt much lighter without his backpack as he crossed the bridge!

After leaving the square earlier than we'd hoped, we made our way to the police station to report the theft of Steven's backpack. It was sad that there were several other tourists also filing reports of theft. The police station was evidently so used to it that they had procedures in place for tourists speaking many different languages so it went very smoothly. We never heard back from the police but we never expected to realistically. 

In our minds, we couldn't not see a flamenco show while in Sevilla. Luckily, we had several options to see one: hour-long serious concerts where the singing and dancing took center stage; about two-hour long touristy dinner and drinks shows with table service but the price didn't include the food; and casual bars with late-night performances, where for the cost of a drink, people could catch impromptu musicians at play. Months earlier we had chosen the first option as it was more our style; we thus ended up at La Casa de Memoria or The House of Memory for an evening of flamenco music and dance.

La Casa de Memoria turned out to be a perfect choice for us; it was a wide venue with only two rows so everyone was able to get a close-up view of the show. The hour-long concert that evening consisted of two dancers, and a singer and guitarist each. Announcements were made in several languages requesting that no photos be taken until near the end when they would be allowed. 

I'd read that the flamenco art form had its roots in the Roma or Gypsy and Moorish cultures. The man attired in all black did most of the flamboyant machine-gun footwork. He was poetry in motion and was an absolute pleasure to watch from the moment he walked on the floor. The woman concentrated on the graceful turns and was very good but not of the same caliber as her counterpart in our minds. 

As Rick Steves wrote, "flamenco guitarists, with their lightning-fast finger-roll strums, are among the best in the world." I am no judge of flamenco but to my untrained ears, we were treated to an evening of wonderful music thanks in large part to the lone guitarist.

The intricate rhythms were set by the hand-clapping (called palmas) of those who weren't dancing at the moment. The hand-clapping comprised a good portion of the show as it allowed the dancers a respite from their frenetic dancing. The male dancer, however, was so adept he could both dance and clap at a furious pace simultaneously. 

Like jazz, flamenco thrives on improvisation. Also like jazz, good flamenco is more than just technical proficiency. A singer or dancer with 'soul' is said to have duende. Flamenco is a happening, with bystanders clapping along and egging on the dancers with whoops and shouts. 

In the raspy-voiced wails of the sole singer, we could hear echoes of the Muslim call to prayer. I found his performance less enjoyable than that of the guitarist and the two dancers, particularly the male's. To my ear, his voice was grating and though he evinced plenty of heartfelt emotion, his 'soul' or duende didn't quite do it for me.

I would hated to have missed this show; after a downer of an afternoon with Steven's backpack being stolen, the chance to be entertained by this foursome made us both grin from ear to ear. 

La Casa de Memoria presented this flamenco poster collection by a wide variety of artists including a rare original one created for the flamenco show Carmen in 1939. 

The poster as an advertising feature began in Paris in the last third of the 19th century with the cities of Milan and Berlin following shortly thereafter. French artist Toulouse-Lautrec raised the level of his artistry with his advertisements for the Moulin Rouge in Paris. Posters promoting products and shows moved ideological propaganda and patriotic publicity before WW I. In Spain, posters were used to promote events, advertise products and became widespread in theaters in the early years of the 20th century. Particularly in this Andalusian region of Spain, the posters became related to religious holidays, folklore and flamenco.

After posters were tainted by patriotism during the Spanish Civil War, they mainly advertised movies and folkloric shows in the 1940s and 1950s and tourism in the 1960s. That latter period coincided with the 'developmentalism' years which was geared to toward selling what was 'typically Spanish.' Universities and flamenco groups reclaimed their identity and began to organize cultural identity, meetings, festivals and conferences. At the same time, numerous artists got more involved in poster design, competing in color and regional character to illustrate local festivities.

One of the cutest bathroom signs ever!

Next post: A visit to Triana on the 'wrong side of the river'!

Posted on March 29th, 2019, from our home in the suburbs west of Denver.