Seville - El Arenal Travel Guides | Seville | Sub Regions | Seville - El Arenal

If you look at a picture of Seville in the early 19th century or earlier, you’ll see that from the Moorish Torre del Ore the city wall recedes from the riverbank, leaving a large open area, El Arenal. This was a haunt of thieves, swindlers, prostitutes, and smugglers, who liked to hang out near the docks, where the action was. Built up in the 19th century, El Arenal is now one of Seville’s most pleasant barrios, with some of its major landmarks and the moving art of the Hospital de Caridad. The Río Guadalquivir itself is a major attraction here; although there are no longer galleons bound for the Spanish Main, there are several outdoor bars, river cruises, and a place to hire canoes. The Arenal has a wealth of excellent tapas bars worth extensive exploration. It’s also the home of bullfighting in Seville with the elegant Maestranza wedged into a city block on the river- front; it’s one of Spain’s principal temples of the activity. The attractive modern Teatro de la Maestranza echoes the bullring’s shape.

Sights

Paseo de Colón s/n, T 954 222 419. Tue-Fri 1000-1400, Sat-Sun 1100-1400. E 1. Bus C3, C4, 40.

The spiky battlements of this beautiful Moorish tower are one of Seville’s primary landmarks and the building is powerfully evocative of the city’s military and maritime history. Located at a pivotal point of the town’s walls, on the river, its duty was to prevent landings in the Arenal area and damage to the docks, and to protect the unwalled Triana bank. To this end, a heavy chain was sometimes stretched across the river, an effective but ultimately futile tactic. The exterior was once decorated with bright, golden ceramic tiles, from which it gets its name.

The interior now holds a motley maritime museum with sharks’ teeth, and paintings of galleons and sea dogs unilluminated by any explanatory panels. It’s worth going in, however, for the old prints showing Seville in the late 16th century. The Arenal is the sandy thieves’ haunt it once was, Triana has its boat-bridge and castle, and the docks are bristling with boats. Directly opposite the Torre del Oro, head through a passage in the large insurance building and round the corner to another pretty and well-preserved Almohad tower, named the Torre de Plata. Then head through another passageway further around the insurance building for another view of it, as well as a section of the old city walls.

Paseo de Colón 12, T 954 224 577, http://www.realmaestranza.com Mon-Sun 0930-1400, 1500-1900 except fight days (spring and summer Sun and all week during Feria), when it’s open 0930-1500, guided tours every 30 mins (English and Spanish).E 4. Bus C4.

One of Spain’s temples of bullfighting, La Maestranza is a beautiful building wedged into a city block, which accounts for its slightly elliptical shape. Started in the mid-18th century, it took until the late 19th century to finish it. It holds some 14,000 spectators and sells out nearly every seat during the April Feria when the most prestigious fights of the season are held. The Seville crowd are among the most knowledgeable of aficionados, and many of bullfighting’s most famous names have been sevillanos. See a fight here if you can; the guided tour is a poor substitute for the atmosphere at the corridas. The tour is brisk and not especially informative unless you know something about the sport; if you want to learn how a bullfight works, you won’t learn it here (the Carmen tour, actually has more of this sort of information). The tour takes you through the main entrance, the Puerta del Príncipe, which has an imposing wrought-iron gateway by Pedro Roldán; it’s a 16th-century work that originally stood in a convent. If a torero has a particularly good day, he is carried out through this door. The tour also takes in the small museum, which has some good pictures of the chaotic affairs that were early bullfights before the present structure of a fight was adopted in 1830. There are paintings of famous fighters and heads of famous bulls. You also briefly visit the horse stables, but disappointingly not the bullpens. Nor are you permitted onto the sand itself (usually the biggest thrill of a bullring visit). You do, however, see the small chapel where bullfighters can pray before the fight. It’s dedicated to the Virgen de la Caridad, patron of bullfighters. Another favoured Virgin is La Macarena, and it’s her who appears above the door to the Infirmary, a chillingly modern room where horn wounds are operated on. The Macarena seems to be doing a good job; no bullfighter has died in the ring in Spain since 1984. Outside the bullring are three statues; alongside is the much-loved Curro Romero, a recently retired matador, while opposite is Pepe Luís Vásquez, another bullfighter, and, of course, the fictional Carmen, heroine of the story by Mérimée and the opera by Bizet. Her betrothed was so jealous of her love for a bullfighter here that he took her life.

Paseo Colón 22, T 954 226 573, http://www.teatromaestranza.com Bus C4.

Designed for the 1992 Expo by Aurelio del Pozo and Luís Marín de Teran, this theatre incorporates an older façade and echoes the shape of the nearby bullring of the same name. It’s an attractive, modern building with a fairly steely exterior and a softer more elegant interior. It hosts a range of ballet, opera, and drama in its two theatres, but is not open to the public at other times.

C Temprado 3, T 954 223 232. Mon-Sat 0900-1330, 1530-1830, Sun 0900-1300. E 3. Bus C4.

Behind the theatre is this residencia de ancianos (nursing home) still fulfilling its original charitable purpose. It was built as a hospital for the poor by Miguel de Mañara, a curious 17th-century sevillano often likened to Don Juan. After a scandalous youth of seduction and deceit he reformed completely after seeing a vision of his own death and dedicated himself to a life of charity and religion. He had a good eye for art; as a result of this, the hospital chapel has a collection of masterpieces by Sevillan masters.

The façade of the hospital is in attractively sober Seville style in contrast to the chapel, which is beautifully decorated with blue and white azulejos. Astride horses, St George and St James kill dragon and Moors respectively, while the virtues Faith, Charity, and Hope are represented in other panels. Faith and Charity are represented in the pretty double patio too, as the centrepiece of the fountains.

The church’s artwork was commissioned by Mañara expressly to remind his brotherhood of the charitable virtues and the futility of wordly wealth and pride. Two astonishing paintings stand above and opposite the entrance. They are the two finest, and most disturbing, works of the Seville painter Juan de Valdés Leal. The first one you’ll see depicts a leering skeletal Death with a scythe, putting out a candle with one hand while trampling over objects that represent wordly wealth, power, and knowledge. The inscription ‘In Ictu Oculi’ translates as ‘in the blink of an eye’. Opposite this is an even more challenging painting entitled Finis Gloriae Mundi (‘the end of wordly glory’). It depicts a crypt in which a dead bishop and knight are being eaten by worms. Above, a balance is borne by the hand of Christ. On one side are symbols of the seven deadly sins, on the other side symbols of a holy love of God and Christ. “Neither more nor less” read the words on the scales. Mañara commissioned these works very exactly, and the face of the knight is thought to be his own.

After these grim warnings, the paintings of Murillo demonstrate the charitable life Mañara wanted his brotherhood to lead. Although four are missing (they were stolen by Napoleon’s pillaging general, Soult and are now scattered around the world; they include the impressive Return of the Prodigal Son in Washington) those that remain are exceptional examples of this artist’s work. St John of God carries a sick man, while St Isabelle of Hungary cares for the afflicted. A Moses horned with light brings forth water from the rock, while Jesus feeds the multitude with loaves and fishes. In a retablo by Bernardo Simón de Pineda next to the pulpit is another Murillo painting, an Annunciation. The pulpit is another symbolic work; atop it is Roldán’s Charity, while at the base of the stairs is a wooden depiction of evil vanquished. Roldán is also responsible for the figures in the intense retablo of Santo Cristo de la Caridad, with a Christ dripping blood flanked by cherubs.

Juan de Valdés Leal painted the ceiling, of which the cupola is particularly fine, while Murillo also painted the small panels of the infants Jesus and John the Baptist above two other retablos. The main retablo, a Churrigueresque riot of cherubs and solomónica columns, is again the work of Roldán and Pineda; the former responsible for the emotive central tableau of the burial of Christ. Mortuus et sepultus est reads the inscription; the curiously misplaced grandfather clock alongside is a feature of many Seville churches. The gallery is dignified by another good Valdés Leal work, the Exaltation of the Cross.

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