Going Somewhere

Apologies for the delay, finally, we have found some free wi-fi in Seville!

The Sevillanas are going somewhere. They walk with swinging steps and an air of purpose. Hands in pockets, head down solitary wanderers, or couples stepping it out whilst managing to be deep in conversation. Even in small groups, gathered to chat, young men ease from foot to foot as though eager to be getting on to the real business of the evening, which is?

We meander down the narrow cobbled streets that pattern the old town. Woe betides the unfortunate foreigner who has not thought to take a map: destined to wander the lanes and alleyways forever in search of home. An endless parade of three storey buildings whose neat plaster walls are regularly studded with tall windows and tiny wrought-iron balconies on which miniature gardens hang precariously. Each house nuanced with slight differences that give it a stamp of individuality and provide the eye with novelty at every step. The new is built in sympathy with the old, to form a seamless vista with no ugly gaps to break the spell.

Then suddenly, an open door reveals the glimpse of an inner courtyard, bright in the sun with coloured tiles and perhaps a stone fountain surrounded by comfy chairs that just invite you in.

The shops cluster in the small irregularly shaped squares that open out in front of you, created to serve the church that almost invariably occupies one side. Sometimes baroque magnificence, sometimes plain, warm, sixteenth century sandstone, but always with a saint painted in a square of tiles on the wall.

Beware of standing back to admire the façade because the approaching car will hurtle through the square at all of fifteen Ks, before it disappears down one of the narrow streets, just wide enough to take it and maybe a pedestrian pressed back against the wall. A one-way system that only those inducted into the inner circle can fathom. And it appears that the inner circle is mostly young, male and replete with bravado and a cool pair of shades.

We are going somewhere, like all the Sevillanos. But where? Unexpectedly we stumble into the Alameda de Hercules, complete with Roman columns (don?t wildly imagine a whole Roman Forum, there are four columns supporting statues, two at each end.) It is full of people, lots of them, but most it seems are going somewhere.

Now it is Sunday morning, 9.30am and the church bell clangs out its call to mass. But the streets are silent, the blinds are down and the Sevillanos are still sleeping, they are going nowhere.