Last Saturday the streets of Seville were the scenery for the first stage of La Vuelta 2010, one of the three major cycling competitions in the world. For this time, organisers decided to try a spectacular format: a night time race through our city centre. It was amazing. After the 22 teams cycled around the city (14 km in about 14 minutes!), Manx cyclist Mark Cavendish became the first leader of the competition. You can have a look at the photo album that we’ve uploaded to our Flickr account:
By the way, since we want our albums to be participative and open to the users, we’d like to invite you to send us all the pictures you have taken during this unforgettable moment. You can send them to turismodesevilla@gmail.com, along with your name and your blog or Twitter address if you want us to link it.
Eighteen years have passed since the Expo’92 and many remains of that unforgettable dream are still up and running for different uses at the Cartuja Island. Probably, the best example of a good reutilisation of the infrastructure is Isla Mágica, our very own theme park… within a stone’s throw of the city centre, as close to the heart of the city that you can just walk and get there in 10 minutes from the Alameda de Hercules or the Macarena neighbourhood.
The park is now enjoying its 13th season in good shape. Its magical scenery takes us back to the moment when the Old Europe and the New World met. In fact, Seville’s golden age started with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America. In the 16th and 17th centuries, our city was the main port for the expeditions to the Indies and to the fearless sailors that would navigate around the globe in order to get to where no white men had been before.
In this adventurous atmosphere, Isla Mágica offers us a travel around seven different worlds: Sevilla Puerto de Indias is the entrance to the park and the place where you can discover El DesafÃo, an amazing drop tower that offers the best views of the city from the top of its 68 metres. Quetzal is the location of Ciklón, an Aztec dish that provides 360 degree spinning and 14-metre-elevations… all at the same time!
Ninety-five years ago, Cadiz-born composer Manuel de Falla wrote one of his most famous works,Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the gardens of Spain),a three movement composition that draws an evocative journey to the sensations of spending a night in some of the most famous gardens of Spain. If you want to, you can listen to it at Spotify (here’s is a performance of the London Symphony Orchestra - you can sign up to this service for free following this link), and then close your eyes and let yourself travel through time and space to the gardens that Falla was inspired by.
Concerts will take place every night between June 30 and September 12 and are divided in three cathegories: the ones dedicated to antique music (from the Middle Age, the Three Cultures in the Mediterranean, the Renaissance and the Baroque eras), the classical nights (the 18th century’s music, the romantic and the nationalist works from the 19th), and those dedicated to other genres (flamenco, blues, jazz and world music). You can find the whole listing here, so you can start planning your summer nights in the city.
Tickets for our very own version of the famous London Proms can be purchased on the week before each concert and prices are as low as 4 euros for the tickets purchased on the Apeadero and the Alcázar’s Puerta de la Alcoba ticket offices or 5 euros for the tickets bought online or by phone. You can get more info at the Nights in the gardens of the Royal Alcázar website (in Spanish).
Four months ago Saint George’s Castle (el Castillo de San Jorge) was reopened as a museum of the Spanish Inquisition and the intolerance. The castle was home for the Santo Oficio for more than three centuries and becomes now a monument that lets us remember the darkest times of Seville’s history in order to make them part of a learnt past we must not repeat.
The Saint George’s Castle is a cry against realities that still today are related to the worst examples of intolerance: the value judgements, the abuse of power and the victims’ vulnerability. This place, devoted to concord, diversity and peaceful coexistence, is as necessary nowadays as it was decades and centuries ago.
Besides allowing us to visit the entrails of a place that most of the 21st century Sevillans don’t know, it is also the perfect excuse for wandering around one of the most authentic spots in the city: the plaza del Altozano, the place that everyone crosses as they arrive in Triana through its famous bridge. The square is, in fact, one of the locations with a higher density of historic and symbolic elements in the West bank of the Guadalquivir. The Faro de Triana (Triana’s lighthouse), the statues of Juan Belmonte and the Flamenco Art, the little Carmen chapel, the Triana groceries market that is built right upon the Castle remains… any good connoiseur of the city (or tourist guide) could spend hours speaking about all these elements that, gathered in this beautiful square, express all the personality of one of the city’s most distinctive neighbourhoods.
Paying a visit to the Castle and to the Altozano square is an absolute must in your schedule if you’re coming to Seville. If you want to know more, you can visit the Castle’s blog, although it is (for the moment) only in Spanish http://www.elcastillodesanjorge.es. And you can also have a look at the picture set we’ve uploaded at flickr.
After the artistic and spiritual Holy Week, our springtime still deserves us one of the most significant moments in the Sevillan calendar. This week we celebrate our Feria de Abril, the celebration of the end of the winter and the beginning of the good weather. It’s also the perfect time to meet friends and family we don’t see so often.
These short films are part of the advertising campaign that our local, public broadcaster Giralda TV and the Seville Tourist Office have prepared to take the flavours of the Fair everywhere in the world. You can see more at their Youtube channel.
And, of course, if you want to know more about the Feria, it’s a great time to go back to our last year’s articles about the ‘Keywords to the Feria’: the first one is here and the second one is here.
