Travel in Spain: The Feria de Sevilla (Seville)

The Feria de Sevilla starts two weeks after Semana Santa (the week of Easter). It traditionally starts on a Tuesday and runs until Sunday.

Feria de Sevilla

by Sean McNamara

The six-hour southbound bus ride passed quickly, as my anticipation for Sevilla’s famous spring Feria (Fair) grew and the monumental silhouettes of Andalusian bulls floated over the hills. Socibus, the company that shuttles travelers from Madrid’s Estacion Sur twice an hour for just over 18 euro, dropped me off at Sevilla’s Plaza de Armas bus station at 3:00 in the afternoon. For expats with incomes that exceed those of students/ nameless writers, you might prefer the AVE, which at 72 euros makes a quick 2.5 hour trip to Sevilla’s more central RENFE train station. Regardless, I was well equipped with homemade bocadillos and my dancing shoes - ready to begin 18 hours at Feria.

Before making my way to the fairgrounds, I used the afternoon to get a few of Sevilla’s many tourist attractions under my belt. Signs lead me to the historic city center, which is dominated by Europe’s third largest cathedral and is a maze of Moorish streets and plazas sweet with orange blossoms. As I admired the Cathedral’s gothic vaulting and wandered through the gardens of the local Alhambra (14th century Moorish Palace), the Feria was always within my periphery: children playing in flamenco costumes, horse-drawn carriages recouping in the shade and shop owners closing down businesses to celebrate yet another night on the fair grounds.

Having lapped up my fill of Sevilla’s history, I entered the flow of people crossing the Guadalquivir River in anxious pursuit of the fairgrounds. The grounds, called Real de la Feria, cover an area of 1.2 million square meters in the barrio of Triana, a neighborhood originally populated by the region’s gypsies. For hundreds of years the Triana gypsies held a four-day horse-trading market which was eventually approved by the cities hierarchy and, by 1846, evolved into the annual Feria. Today one enters the grounds through a colossal Portada, a temporary gate climbing 40 meters into the sky and adorned with 60,000 glowing light bulbs.

The portada gives way to a city of colorful tents called casetas (little houses), which are metal framed structures covered in brightly striped canvas and jam-packed with Sevilla’s blue-blooded elite. The casetas, more so than the acres of circus tents and rides, serve as the nucleus for the feria, as they are home to all-night jamborees of dancing, socializing and general revelry. Ranging from 30 to 90 square meters, most casetas are privately owned by prestigious local families, private clubs, political parties and businesses, and are therefore highly exclusive. There are, however, seven large public or municipal casetas, where locals and wanderers alike can go for a beer, sherry or tapa at the raucous bar.

Before the long night began, I used hours four and five of my 18 to admire an event of equal importance to the casetas, the Sevillans parading on horseback. Throughout the afternoon, until 8 PM to be exact, the Sevillan aristocracy marches through the Real’s cobbled streets on top of Andalusian horses so elaborately costumed that you almost overlook the socialites riding on their backs. Abiding by ancient codes of horse conduct and hospitality, the male riders, dressed in petticoats, belly-button high trousers and wide-brimmed bolero hats, escort side-saddled female companions between casetas, sharing a glass of Manzanilla (a dry and very potent sherry wine - trust me on the potency) with the owner of each house. The flowing “traje de gitana” (gypsy dress, flamenco to us gringo/as) worn by almost all Sevillan women at the fair make the horse parade look like a procession of stately 18^th century politicos escorting human size butterflies, I kid you not.

Feria at Night

Hour seven and the clock turns 9:00, the last rays of sun fade from the sky, leaving the feria illuminated under 360,000 light bulbs. This is when the real action begins. Caseta cooks start churning out tapas to fuel their patrons: shrimp, lobster, lomo (pork), chicken skewers, tortilla (Spanish omelet), fried hake, calamari and so forth. The wooden barrels of manzanilla are propped up and the drinking begins. Flamenco music, supplied either by a private troupe, booming stereo system or the Sevillans themselves, flows from every caseta and collects in the streets, sweeping passersby up in the rhythm and impelling them to dance in the cobbled lanes.

Now as a foreigner to the Feria you’ll probably have to abandon your plans to blend in as a local. Traditionally, Sevillanas (women of Seville) wear bright and flowing flamenco dresses, giant roses and fans pinned into the guapas’ (beautiful women’s) dark hair. The necessary accessories are: clappers, fans and flowing sashes. Men would need high heeled boots, suits tighter than Motley Crüe’s concert gear and wide-brimmed bolero hats.

If you didn’t pack such gear, don’t worry you can still party like an authentic Sevillan. The dance is contagious so watch the moves, start clapping and join in. The basic moves are learned quickly: a three step salsa with your feet, the occasional spin and a secret, repetitive motion with the arms. I was lucky enough to be taught this secret by a group of surprisingly sober Sevillans – “Coges la manzana, la comes y tires.” It’s an exercise in interpretive dance: reach up and pick the apple from the tree, take a bite and throw it away. Now try this with one arm – carefully – and then start doing it back and forth… good, there you go.

So you have the basics, but you will quickly learn that every Sevillan at Feria dances the dance and they know more than the two-step. Their heels stamp out the beat at machine-gun speed while their arms twirl like ribbons of smoke. As the singer’s voice grows louder and more emotive, their faces contort with passion and bliss. Many of the best flamenco performances go on behind curtains in the private casetas, but the seven public casetas have an intimate, upbeat air all to themselves and when the eager crowd hits the dance floor, the flamenco comes fast and furious. I found that most foreigners are drawn to the large caseta near the portada (portada/entrance) where, despite harsh lighting and exposed metal frames, the boundless laughter gives the site undeniable warmth.

I must warn you, time will fly by in the Feria’s casetas, so use it wisely. Hours 7-14 passed in the blink of an eye or, maybe more accurately, in the sharing manzanillas with perfect strangers. When the public casetas finally shut down and the younger Sevillan crowd is convinced to move the party elsewhere, the streets of tent-city become a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: lights and color overwhelm your senses, shouts of laughter fill the air, the dance twirls on and everything blends together under the sherry’s amber hue.

Revive yourself for the walk home with some churros and chocolate, then mosey back across the river as quietly as can be, timing your footsteps to the muffled claps that beat out the rhythm of the sleeping heart of Sevilla. This is Feria.

What was not Feria was the 4 hours of sleep I got on the freezing bus station floor before Socibusing my way back to Madrid. No matter; start sewing your golden hems now, practice your Sevillanas (regional dance similar to Flamenco) steps and don’t miss next year’s fair.

---Published 2008-04-24

Sean McNamara

Topics: cheap, concerts, culture, dance, drink, eat, escape, festivals, flamenco, food, tapas & raciones, yikes, parents are in town!

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Travel in Spain: The Feria de Sevilla (Seville)

Travel in Spain: The Feria de Sevilla (Seville)

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