The Hot Bastard of Sevilla

We had not realized how quiet and tourist free Jerez was until we arrived in Sevilla. We had the same experience in Barcelona, and expect we will see it again in Toledo and Madrid. Tourists in Spain, and most likely everywhere, seem to concentrate in a few really popular cities. The beauty of Sevilla is that it is quintessentially Andalucian, which even a herd of grazing foreigners cannot spoil. The highlights included our first flamenco performance, the cathedral, Plaza de España, the Alcazer, and a birthday!

Birthday rainbow

The birthday was the best part, with apple tart for breakfast, flan with lunch, cheesecake for a snack and no room for the chocolate roll cake after dinner. It had to suffice for breakfast the next morning. Birthday dinner was delicious, and authentically Spanish in food and time of day. Beginning at approximately 10:30 p.m. (about the time it starts to feel comfortable), we thoroughly savored a pitcher of Sangria, chicken with béchamel sauce, and pork sirloin with Roquefort.


Celebrating amongst the feast

Flamenco…Andalucia is famous for this authentic tradition and we were lucky to catch a glimpse at a local bar. The bar had no sign, no awning, pretty much nothing that would indicate it was an establishment. Two pieces of paper adorned the front door: “Please do not park in front of the door” and “Summer hours: Monday to Sunday, open at 20:00.” We cautiously entered, and were surprised to find an enormous space with two large rooms and a spacious patio. Soon, the flamenco began. A trio containing a guitarist, a singer, and a dancer. The singer ran the show, belting out passionate Spanish songs, sweat pouring down his intent face. The dancer added a lot of rhythm, clapping sharply and complementing the delicate and beautiful guitarist with vibrant percussion. Then at the end, she did her thing. So hard to describe, again intent, fiery, and rich with her attitude and love of flamenco. It was really amazing.

The Giralda from the orange tree filled patio

The cathedral is enormous, and astounding. Its vastness is hard to comprehend. The bell tower is a converted minaret, the Giralda, a 12th-century remnant of the mosque that stood here before the cathedral.

View from the bell tower ... roof top pools were unexpected

Early founders and architects reportedly decided, “Let us create such a building that future generations will take us for lunatics.” The cathedral contains the largest alter piece in the world, the Capilla Mayor, with more than 1000 biblical figures that took nearly 80 years to complete. It is very gold and very big.


Everyday life in Sevilla

Plaza de España was built for an international festival in the early 1920’s. It’s a large semi-circle, in the middle of a large park, and is rich with Andalucian tiles of every color, shape and design. The building surrounding it is now used for government offices, but is extraordinarily ornate. It is the kind of building that governments build when they want to show off. Thanks, guys! The plaza is also one of the more relaxing places to sit in Sevilla, as many tourists seem to miss it on their march.

Pretty...

As we entered the bus station for our departure, the temperature read 41 degrees Celsius, and with an average humidity of 73% we couldn’t help but dream of Seattle…

Jerez de la Frontera

Jerez de la Frontera is a small city in the southwest corner of Spain. It’s a quick bus ride from Tarifa, where we arrived on the ferry from Morocco. It’s a wonderful place, but in truth, it’s famous for one thing: sherry. The word sherry actually comes from the old name for the city, Scheris. The surrounding area is ripe with vineyards, and the city itself has more wineries (they call them “bodegas”) than anywhere else we’ve ever been.

Just sittin' there gettin' better

The sherry triangle of Andalucia is a small area contained by Jerez, Sanlucar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa Maria. If you make sherry outside of this triangle, it doesn’t count. The area is reported to contain the three necessities for sherry: sun, water, and extremely chalky soil. The soil literally looks like beige chalk, but loses very little water to evaporation so continues to hydrate the vineyards during the blaring summer heat.

Matthew and Tio Pepe consult

One of the most renowned sherry bodegas in Jerez is Gonzalez Byass, producers of the incredibly popular wine Tio Pepe. A hilarious name, a very serious business owned by the Gonzalez family. They’ve been in business since the mid-19th century, making not only sherry, but brandy, wine, and vinegar. We visited the brandy bodega first, and got to see the early distillation machines as well as the brandy aging (for 15 years mind you) in American oak barrels. More than anything, the scents on our tour were incredible. You could smell the brandy from outside the entire grounds. Inside, the air smelled old, damp and thick with brandy.

While in Jerez we also took a day trip out to Sanlucar de Barrameda, a coastal spot popular with Spaniards in the summer, but also renowned for manzanilla, a dry sherry preferably consumed with seafood. So, we went to the beach and watched the scene whirl around us, walked along the shore (and found tons of cuttlebones), and had a lunch of fresh seafood with manzanilla.

Patio de Alcazar

We also spent a bit of a day at the Alcazar. The most famous Alcazars are found in Sevilla, Toledo, and Segovia. They are essentially palaces built by Islamic rulers when they dominated much of southern Spain.

The only mosque we were allowed to enter, it felt a little weird

The short story is that the history is so muddled with various occupations that these palaces are a fusion of Andalucian and Arabic architecture. We felt distinctly that we had come from Andalucian Morocco to Moroccan Andalucia. Considering our quick journey back to Spain, it is not all that surprising.

Open air windows in the Arabic baths

Jerez was a perfect spot to land for a few days. We relished in new sights, having supermarkets nearby (cheese, apples and salchichon here we come!), wearing tank tops and shorts, and just generally feeling comfortable with familiarity.

Ma'salama Morocco

It happened so quickly. Half an hour, and we were back in Europe. Left behind were the headscarves, the call to prayer, and a million other things Moroccan. After two months in Morocco, we were pretty excited to get back to Spain. The ferry over was quick, pleasant, and very European.


The intercontinental ferry


Got through customs, made our way to the bus station, and had lunch at a lovely little café. It was the kind of place you just don’t find in Morocco – staffed by one young woman, a menu full of varied mixtures of meats and vegetables, and wireless internet! It was as if the whole country of Spain were saying “Welcome back!” through this one establishment. We were happy, and it was probably the most enjoyable two-hour wait for a bus we’ve ever had.

Larache: The Last Stop

The coastal city of Larache was the last stop on our Moroccan tour. There is a popular nearby beach town that soaks up most of the local tourism, so there are very few foreigners, and little of the things that usually go along with them here – souvenir shops, touts, over-priced taxis, faux guides, etc….


The waterfront


Though Larache is right on the water, the good local beach is across the Loukkos Estuary. To get there, you have to catch a boat for the short hop. The boat launch is a scene of total mayhem.

Too many people + small boat = wet butts


Boats trying to edge in to load and unload, various people squabbling with each other, people getting on the boats or getting in the way, and overloaded boats struggling not to take on water. We spent a good hour one day just sitting and watching the fracas, and there were many locals doing the same thing – free, non-stop entertainment.

The chaos


About 5 km from Larache are the Roman ruins of Lixus. The site was apparently inhabited at least 3000 years ago, but the ruins date from the 5th century A.D., when the Roman colony here was abandoned. The ruins are pretty well overgrown, but the amphitheatre was amazing, and the wall sections give an idea of the settlement that used to be.

Perfectly circular...how did they do that?


Our visit was also put off a bit by the news from the guardian of the site, who told us that it wasn’t safe to wander alone, due to thieves preying on tourists. We thought this might be a ploy to get us to pay for his “protection”, but it turned out he was paid by the government, and he accompanied us, was incredibly friendly, and asked for nothing from us. Another example of the difficulty we have interpreting people’s actions toward us.

Tall ruins, normal sized tree


We had some trouble finding the food we’d gotten used to – tajines, couscous, and the like were tough to find or nonexistent in the local restaurants. And many of the restaurants seemed to have limited menus, or things only available at certain times of day. For example, they were usually out of salad before dinner time, and didn’t start making harira (Moroccan soup) until after lunch time. But we settled into eating what the locals eat – lots of delicious fresh seafood, salads with lunch, and some of the best harira we’ve had in the whole country (and at seventy cents a bowl, an incredible deal).

We liked it too...