azahar

Outside my house in Sevilla

Today is the last day of the April Fair. I think it’s the first one in all the time I’ve been here when it hasn’t rained. Well, other than a few drops on Tuesday. I wasn’t able to go during the week because of feeling unwell, but my friend Peter and I took a walk over on Friday afternoon and took a few photos. You can see them below …
Continue reading feria

Came across this new transportation service yesterday, which looks interesting. A kind of rickshaw-taxi with a motor option, though I was told it mostly used pedal-power. It can carry up to two adults and one child and has various routes throughout central Sevilla. Prices start at 40 cents per minute (or 6 euros for fifteen minutes). For two people it can work out cheaper than taking the tram on short trips through the now mostly pedestrianised centre of town.

If you want to try one out just stop by the Plaza Nueva
or call 667 943 954 to reserve your tricicleta.

To my surprise and delight National Geographic Intelligent Traveller blog has published my contribution to their I Heart My City series. You just copy & paste their list of questions into an email and return it to them with your responses. Which I did. But it was still surprising when I saw Marilyn Res’s tweet announcing it the other day.

My fifteen minutes of fame.

I Heart My City: Shawn’s Seville

100% Italian linen easy wear

azahar natural clothing

My own experience with Semana Santa began in the spring of 1994 (I had moved to Sevilla the previous September) and, aside from hearing about pasos and the bulla, I really had no idea of what to expect. I knew that various processions depicting different stages of the Passion went on all week, beginning midday on Palm Sunday and ending with the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. And I learned that, just like visiting the Prado or the Louvre, it’s impossible to take it all in at once.

So over the next few years I would choose a couple of cofradias and made sure I saw them at their best viewing point (which apparently is not sitting like a veal in one of the very expensive seats in the Plaza San Francisco or in front of the Cathedral).  Some favourite memories include watching El Cachorro make its way over the Puente Isabel at midnight and listening for the soft oboe accompaniment of El Silencio near the Plaza Salvador.

These days, as I live a stone’s throw from the cathedral,  I tend to let Semana Santa come to me. And hope that at least once during the week I’ll get to hear the Amargura march played.

Apparently Turismo Sevilla has live webcam coverage this year. And this Intelligent Traveller article can give you a visitor’s insight and some good traveller’s tips on surviving Semana Santa in Sevilla.

This morning I read an article on the Matador Abroad website giving 7 reasons to take a cooking class while travelling, and it reminded me of Ruth Robert’s very special cooking classes in Sevilla.

Ruth is originally from Australia and has been cooking in Seville since 1992 when she was the VIP chef at the British Pavillion at the World Expo ‘92.  In 1995 she was one of the chefs at the Royal Wedding of the Enfanta Elena, daughter of the King and Queen of Spain.

On the day of the class Ruth will meet you at your hotel and take you on a tour of a local market. Then it’s on to her charming apartment in the old city centre for the class. An aperitif is followed by a relaxing lunch on the terrace overlooking the city. A list of recipes is also provided, giving you a unique “souvenir” of your stay in Seville that you will be able to share with family and friends at home.

Seville Cooking Classes

Daily updates for both azahar’s Sevilla and Sevilla Tapas can be found on the two Twitter accounts shown below. Come and follow me!

azahar on Twitter

SevillaTapas on Twitter

If you are not yet twittering, check out this very informative tutorial…

Twitter isn’t just a cute way for keeping in instant touch with friends on mobile phones anymore. It has ramped up quickly to be the search engine of choice for some with its human driven results.

Applications galore allow you to find friends all over the world with similar interests and keep up with them in real time.

Businesses can form instant direct relationships with their customer bases simply by signing up and using the service regularly, and according to the models Twitter is trying out, they will soon be able to advertise to the Twitter community as well. It has grown into a behemoth that is hard to get your hands around, which is why we’ve put this article together for you.

Twitter Tutorial

This weekend the first orange blossom (azahar) was spotted in the centre of Sevilla. This is always the first sign of spring for me, though it never becomes “official” until you see the ya es primavera banners across the windows of El Corte Inglés.

For the next three weeks or so the streets of Seville will smell like heaven. I used to wonder why I found the fragrance of orange blossom so soothing until I found out that azahar has many therapeutic qualities, including its use as a natural sedative.  Other therapeutic properties of orange blossom oil (aka Neroli) are antidepressant, antiseptic, anti-infectious, antispasmodic, aphrodisiac, bactericidal, carminative, cicatrisant, cytophylactic, cordial, deodorant, digestive, emollient, and tonic. It takes about 1000 lbs. of orange blossoms to make 1 lb. of Neroli oil, which no doubt accounts for its rather hefty price tag.

But as lovely as Neroli is, it is no comparison for the delicate scent of orange blossom in the fresh spring air. Wish you could be here…

Sevilla Tapas is a personal collection of some of my favourite restaurants and tapa bars in Seville. It started quite by chance in April 2007 when I was out for lunch with a friend and it was such a beautiful spring day that I took a few photos of the square where we were sitting.  Then just for a laugh I also took some food shots to show friends on my casa az blog. The response was so positive that I started publishing regular “lunch posts”, which eventually led to starting a separate website for Sevilla Tapas.

Each restaurant and tapa bar has its own archive page including restaurant information, photos and maps, which can be found on the Tapas & Restaurants drop-down menu on the sidebar. Restaurants are also listed by area and by cuisine.

Visitors are welcome to leave comments and queries on the various restaurant posts, or to contact me by email.

Check out the recently redesigned website …

Sevilla Tapas