7 Spanish Cities

Having been living in the Basque Country since September I decided I needed a dose of Central and Southern Spain. I didn’t set out to hit as many Spanish cities as I could over my Easter break but it sure turned out this way. I ate enough churros and paella to last me a lifetime, dozed on sandy beaches, got lost wandering through sunny, cobbled streets, struggled with the different Spanish accents, visited some top tourist attractions and had a generally awesome time.

Here’s the low-down:

1. Bilbao

We’ll start with my home town as, despite the fact that I live here, it was technically the first stop on my holidays. I’m trying not to be biased as I have spent a lot more time here than any of the other cities on this list, but there is a certain honest charm to this city that I have become very much accustomed and attached to. Particularly to Puppy (pronounced Poopy) the dog made of flowers at the Guggenheim Museum:

However, one will find no tapas, no sangria and no flamenco in the Basque Country so I was in need of some authentic Spanish travelling. Thus began my holiday, on a chilly, drizzly Thursday afternoon at the bus station, which sits in the shadow of San Mames football stadium. I will not lie, some sun was very much required at this point…

2. Madrid

Second stop, the capital of Spain. I met my mother at our adorable, little hostel just off Gran Via and we spent a long weekend simply wandering around, stumbling across tourist hotspots and sampling all that this chilled-out capital has to offer. There’s a definite hustle and bustle to Madrid but you never feel totally lost or out of your depth like you can in other big cities like London. I would argue that there is nothing particularly defining about Madrid and on a grey day it was not a hugely photogenic city. The majority of my photos from here were taken of mother and I eating copious amounts of food inside the Mercado de San Miguel, a place where I could quite happily spend the rest of my days.

3. Sevilla

I instantly fell in love with Sevilla. She has a charm like no other Spanish city that I’ve been to before. From the orange trees in the blossom covered plazas to the beautifully magnificent churches around every corner, she is a city born out of religion and enchanting Spanish history. Home to the second biggest cathedral in Europe and the filming locations of both Game of Thrones and Star Wars Episode II, it’s a fantastic city to explore for a few days.

A particular highlight was the evening my friends and I spent in a small sala (lounge) in a gem of a bar listening to some authentic flamenco singing. Stereotypes had prepared me for a young female dancer in a red dress but we were pleasantly surprised to find a quartet consisting of José the insanely talented guitarist, singers David and Enrique (who was possibly older than 80 and probably forever slightly drunk on red wine) and an incredible, young, male dancer. Not what we were expecting but definitely a pleasant surprise.

4. Cádiz

Almost entirely surrounded by water and truly Andalusian in character, Cádiz is Europe’s oldest inhabited city. With not a lot going on within the city on a lazy Easter Sunday, we were content to spend a super relaxing day snoozing on the beach, exploring a Moorish fort designed in the shape of a star and eating some of the best paella and fried fish of the entire holiday.

5. Malaga

Heading further east through Andalucia, our next stop was Malaga which I didn’t get to explore as much as I would have liked. This is entirely my own fault as I had one too many glasses of wine… plus a cocktail, some beer and possibly even shots…who needs specifics? Anyway, this resulted in a day spent sleeping and watching the world go by from the roof terrace as opposed to venturing out into the town itself. I did however make some time the next morning for a spot of wandering and enjoyed snapping away in the famous Mercado Central Atarazanas. A quiet Wednesday morning was incidentally a great time to visit as the only other people I really had to contend with for some cheap fresh fruit were little old ladies with their pull-along trolleys and a few early-bird tourists.

There are too many tourists in Malaga for my liking but some great bars and seriously good seafood restaurants (so my companions tell me, I was still in bed). We even tried some famous sweet wine in Malaga’s most famous bar, El Pimpi, which has pictures of every celebrity who has ever bought a drink there. This means that the walls are mostly covered with pictures of Antonio Banderas who is from Malaga and this is something that the people here are clearly rather proud of.

6. Granada

So remember I said I fell in love with Sevilla? That was merely a school girl crush compared to beautiful Granada. This gorgeous city is on another level entirely and where I could see myself living in a few years time. Just the view from the bus as you approach the city was enough to make me super excited; a typical Andalusian city surrounded by snowcapped mountains with the Alhambra looming overhead.

The Alhambra; a tourist attraction which certainly did not disappoint. The most visited attraction in Spain, the Alhambra takes up about 50% of the tourist city map and is simply a huge complex of palaces and gardens with the most breath-taking architectural design that I have ever seen. It is similar to the Alcazar of Sevilla but about twenty times the size. Paying for the guided tour was a great decision, not least because we’d have got lost without the beautiful Esmerelda to show us the way, but also because we got to find out some juicy facts about various sultans who once resided there. For example, one particular sultan apparently owned 50,000 women, and would romance (putting it cleanly) approximately 3 of them a day. According to Esmerelda, he died this way…

Granada is also home to the whole ‘free tapas with a drink’ thing, something which we certainly did not make the most of. This is because we were usually so hungry by the time we sat down to eat that we didn’t give them a chance to put anything free in front of us before we ordered food. I will certainly not be making this mistake on my imminent return.

7. Barcelona

My final stop was Barcelona. The city that literally has it all; the beach, the bustling city centre, the history, the mountains with an epic view, the crazy nightlife (and the partygoers to go with it), the awesome art and architecture, I could go on. At one point, I enthusiastically described Barcelona as a ‘super trendy’ city and I instantly became un-trendy by doing so.

It was here that I met up with university pals and we basically spent the weekend strolling arm in arm catching up and reminiscing. Two days was nowhere near enough to see just a snippet of Barcelona but we certainly gave it our best shot. Highlights included listening to a string duo for an hour in Güell Park, unintentionally watching the Barcelona vs Real Madrid match over paella, being cultural in the Picasso Museum (which is free the first Sunday of the month, WINNING) and drinking street sangria in the sun next to the mightily expensive super yachts in the marina.

And thus I flew back to Basque Country, 9 hours before I would have to be up in time for school again the next morning. A cracking 2 weeks and I’m already plotting my next movements. Gotta keep up the tan!!

I’ll stop there as I’ve gotten carried away again. Until next time amigos!

Semana Santa In Sevilla

Easter has never been a huge celebration for me. When my sister and I were younger we often went with our grandparents to the car park on Sidmouth seafront to collect an orange, a cadburys creme egg and a hot cross bun on Good Friday. But this was about as exciting as it ever got. As the evidence suggests, not even an Easter egg hunt in the garden could get us all that enthused:

Sadly, we haven’t done this for years (though I should not have been so quick to throw away that hat) and for me, Easter traditions currently consist simply of a weekend of eating chocolate and some chill-out time with family.

This is not to say that I don’t find religious customs and traditions at this time of year fascinating. In fact, quite the opposite. Thus, the prospect of hitting Sevilla, a city in the south of Spain famous for its Easter celebrations and processions during Holy Week, or Semana Santa, was an exciting, yet daunting one.

Semana Santa in Sevilla is more than a week of festivities which begin during the weekend of Palm Sunday and end the following weekend on Easter Sunday. Each day sees up to 15 processions line the streets of Sevilla as they transport Pasos, huge statues of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, from one of the many churches, into the cathedral in the centre of the city and back again. This can take up to 14 hours. The Pasos are carried on the necks of Costaleros, men of the Cofradías (the brotherhood), and each Paso represents a part of the passion and death of Jesus.

They are accompanied by hundreds, if not thousands, of ‘penitentes’ or penitent ones. We are talking about huge processions which take over the entire city and surrounding neighbourhoods and completely bring a halt to everyday life. The penitentes are also called Nazarenos and these can be a slightly scary sight at first as, for many foreigners, the first thing that one thinks of is the Ku Klux Klan. The Nazarenos bear no relation to the group of American activists whatsoever. Their symbolic significance is in fact very different; they cover their faces for the reason that they believe that only God can truly see them and the cones on top of their heads symbolise their wish to rise up to heaven.

Many of the processions are also accompanied by a huge marching band. There is something almost film-like about this as the band provides a soundtrack to the Paso’s journey to the cathedral. The music moves with the procession, pausing as the Costaleros take a break, becoming more emotive and louder should they encounter a bend or street which requires a difficult manoeuvre, and often including trumpet or clarinet solos which echo throughout the packed streets.

Some of the processions however are silent and have a more haunting feel to them, particularly the ones after dark. It is custom that the Nazarenos do not speak during the procession and so they walk eerily in silence. It is therefore quite easy to forget that they are real people and not ghosts.

In an English inspired twist, the weather caused a bit of upset at the beginning of this year’s celebrations. The images or statues on the Pasos can be seriously damaged should they get wet and so the organisers of each procession had to make the decision as to whether or not they would proceed with the walk to the cathedral. My friend and I often found ourselves consulting Twitter in order to find out the latest info on which processions were going ahead and which had made the decision to remain in their churches. The men of the individual brotherhoods often wait years for their turn to carry the Pasos as it is considered to be a great honour. So I was told to expect to see many a grown man weeping on the streets as he realised that his opportunity to be a Costalero had been denied due to some untimely rainfall. Having said this, I didn’t see any crying men, although we did witness an entire procession turn back halfway to the cathedral which was heartbreaking to watch.

The processions all start and finish at different times and have different routes throughout the city. My favourite time to be out procession-hunting was during Thursday night, also referred to as the Madruga. This is the only time that they continue the whole way through the night (though many begin before dawn and finish after midnight on other days). To be up at 4am to see figures of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary make their way through narrow streets surrounded by hooded figures holding candles seemed crazy and almost scary but was not to be missed. Speaking of which, my friends and I almost didn’t see any of the Madruga, having decided to take a tactical siesta at about 11pm in order to make it through the night. We proceeded to ignore our alarms and almost slept through the entire thing.

Some interesting traditions occur within these festivities. For example, each Nazareno involved in the processions will be carrying either a candle, a cross or a relic from their church. This results in a crazy amount of dripping wax covering the cobbled streets of Sevilla. One has to be careful not to slip and it makes an awfully irritating squeaking noise. This gives cause to a custom whereby young children collect wax from the Nazarenos during the procession and use it to create a sort of wax ball. It appears to be a competition amongst them as they each try to get the biggest, most colourful ball of wax.

Another custom is that Nazarenos are often seen to be handing out sweets or ‘caramelos’ to children in the crowds. There are many explanations for this but I like to think that it is because this encourages young children not to be afraid of them. And it seems to have worked. Whenever a procession pauses, young children can be seen approaching Nazarenos and asking sweetly for any caramelos por favor. My childish tendencies took over and I may have come away with a caramelo on more than one occasion.

I had a wonderful Easter Week but I wouldn’t recommend going to Sevilla during Semana Santa if you’re not interested in the festivities. You will constantly find yourself turning a corner and encountering a procession and it will take you twice as long to get anywhere and a lack of tolerance is not something that will help the situation. The restaurants also radically increase their prices and will have a special Semana Santa menu, much to my frustration (sometimes a girl just needs some cheap churros!). But if you’re willing to just go with the flow and see where the chaos of Semana Santa takes you then it is an incredible experience. The atmosphere and sense of togetherness which engulfs this already vibrant city is simply beautiful. At a time when people are so ready and almost eager to blame religion for the terror in this world, we have to remember that it can still bring us together, whether we are of a different faith or not religious at all.