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Delving beyond the lovable icons; the flamenco, the oranges, the horse carriages, the haunting Semana Santa celebrations, you find – of course – a city. But what a city; a place where being seen is nothing unless you’re seen to be having fun, where the musical traditions of gypsies cross dark eyes with the proud inheritances of Andalucían grandees, where people are united by tapas and divided by football and where the ghosts of Spain walk the streets, be they fictional, like Don Juan or Carmen or historical, like Cervantes or Columbus. A place described in the 16th century as having “the smell of a city and of something undefinable, of another greatness”.
While the city’s fortunes have waxed and waned, its allure has not; the census sheet bristles with travellers who came for a week and never left, while within Spain its name is spoken like a mantra, a word laden with sensuality and promise. Promise of the scent of desert peoples, of the scent of the Americas, of the scent of proud Castillian kings. Promise of the taste of fine food, of genuine welcome, vitality, and of inconclusive stories told over tapas and taximeters.
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