Sevilla: Tapas Are All the Rage

Eating in Sevilla is fun and affordable. People from Madrid and Barcelona find it a wonderful value. Make a point to get out and eat well when in Sevilla.

The general system is to eat family-style, sharing everything. Smaller tapas are served at the bar, while larger portions called half-raciones and full raciones are at the tables. While raciones work great for small groups, individuals and couples get more variety with tapas. Fortunately, many places are easing up on the “tapas only at the bar” rule. You can always ask — many places are easing up on this rule, and if things are slow, they’ll let tapas eaters sit at a table.

A clear eating trend in Sevilla is the rise of gourmet tapas bars, with spiffed-up decor and creative menus, at the expense of traditional restaurants. Even in difficult economic times, when other businesses are closing down, tapas bars are popping up all over. (Locals explain that with the collapse of the construction industry here, engineers, architects, and other professionals — eager for a business opportunity — are investing in trendy tapas bars.)  Old-school places survive, but they often lack energy, and it seems that their clientele is aging with them. My quandary: I like the classic típico places. But the lively atmosphere and the best food are in the new places. One thing’s for certain: If you want a good “restaurant” experience, your best value these days is to find a trendy tapas bar that offers good table seating, and sit down to enjoy some raciones.

While you can find tapas somewhere just about any time, the best action starts late. Restaurants generally serve lunch from 13:00 to 16:00 and dinner from 20:00 until very late. Spaniards don’t start lunch until about 14:00 and dinner until after 21:00; at these times, the top tapas bars can get extremely crowded with locals, and it can be tough for English-speaking tourists to find a place — or even order. Tourists wanting to avoid the crush have clear windows of opportunity: If you go early — around 13:30 for lunch or 20:30- 21:00 for dinner — you’ll get better service and a place at the bar.

For a different twist on a tapas bar, find an abacería. This is a neighborhood grocery store that doubles as a tapas bar. I found a great one, which will star in the next edition of my Spain guidebook: Abacería Casa Moreno is a rare, classic abacería (an old-time grocery store that also serves tapas). Squeeze into the back room, and you’re squeezing back in time — and that includes a steep language barrier. It’s standing-only. Help yourself to the box of pork scratchings on the bar while choosing from an enticing list of €2.50 tapas. They’re proud of their top-quality jamón serrano and queso manchego, and serve hot tapas only at lunch. Rubbing elbows here with local eaters under a bull’s head surrounded by jars of peaches and cans of sardines, you feel like you’re in on a secret (Mon-Fri 8:00-15:30 & 19:30-22:30, closed Sat-Sun, 3 blocks off Plaza Nueva at Gamazo 7, tel. 954-228-315).

My guide demonstrates how quality ham, sliced thin, will stick to the plate when upturned. I’m not sure what that has to do with quality, but one thing I am sure of: When in Spain, life’s too short to eat mediocre jamón. At least a couple of times, pay extra for the best ham on the list.

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Sevilla’s Pesky Good-Luck Peddlers

Part of any tourist’s experience when visiting Sevilla is encountering these pesky and persistent beggars. They offer you a tiny sprig of greenery. You say no. They force it on you. You take it and then can’t give it back. They insist on a payment, while telling your fortune on the fly. You finally offer them a few coins to get them to leave you alone. They refuse to take coins, claiming coins are bad luck. They insist on paper. You finally buy your freedom for five euros. Or…you refuse to be intimidated. These are adults who know they are making fools of timid tourists. Have fun with these women, but don’t let them psych you into a costly encounter.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

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Sevilla: The Home of Flamenco Can Terrorize a Child

Updating the flamenco scene in Sevilla for my Spain guidebook, I had the occasion to pop into concerts in five different venues in town. Sevilla is the best city in which to experience flamenco. While the concerts are designed for tourists, they are real and riveting, and a great value. Here’s my latest report on the much-changed flamenco concert scene in Sevilla:

In Sevilla, you basically have three flamenco options: serious — yet still touristy — flamenco concerts, where the singing and dancing take center stage; even more touristy shows that have a bar and/or food (scurrying waiters can distract from the performers); and — least touristy — casual bars late at night, where you can catch impromptu or semi-impromptu musicians at play.

Serious Flamenco Concerts
While it’s hard to choose among these three nightly, one-hour Flamenco concerts, I’d say enjoying one is a must during your Sevilla visit. To the novice viewer, each company offers equal quality. They cost about the same, and each venue is small, intimate, and air-conditioned. For most, they are preferable to the “shows” listed later; compared to those, these options are half the cost, half the length, half the seats, and earlier in the evening. (While you can hear flamenco for free in various bars around town — also described later — that scene ignites very late.) My recommended concerts are careful to give you a good overview of the art form, covering all the flamenco bases. At each venue, you can reserve by phone and pay upon arrival, or drop by early to pick up a ticket. While La Casa del Flamenco is the nicest and most central venue, the other two have exhibits that can add to the experience.
Casa de la Memoria is a strangely wide venue (just two rows deep), where everyone gets a close-up view and room to stretch out (€16, nightly at 19:30 and 21:00, no drinks, no children under 6, 80 seats, Calle Cuna 6, tel. 954-560-670, www.casadelamemoria.es, flamencomemoria@gmail.com, run by Rosanna). Their exhibit is one easy, well-described floor, with lots of photos and a few artifacts (€3, or free with concert ticket — but only open 10:00-18:00).
The Flamenco Dance Museum, while the most congested venue (with 115 tightly packed seats), has a bar and allows drinks, and you can visit the museum immediately before the show. It’s festival seating. The doors open at 18:00, allowing you to grab the seat of your choice and spend an hour touring the museum, and enjoy a drink before the show (€20, nightly at 19:00; €24 combo-ticket includes the museum and a show; 10 percent discount off museum, show, or combo-ticket with this book; Manuel Rojas Marcos 3, about 3 blocks east of Plaza Nueva, tel. 954-340-311, www.flamencomuseum.com).
La Casa del Flamenco is in a delightful arcaded courtyard right in the Barrio Santa Cruz (€18, nightly at 21:00 April-Sept, 19:30 Oct-March, no drinks, no kids under 6, 60 spacious seats, the reception at the adjacent hotel serves as the box office, tel. 954-500-595, Ximénez de Enciso 33).

Razzle-Dazzle Flamenco Shows
These packaged shows can be a bit sterile — and an audience of tourists doesn’t help — but I find both Los Gallos and El Arenal entertaining and riveting. While El Arenal may have a slight edge on talent and feels slicker, Los Gallos has a cozier setting, with cushy rather than hard chairs — and it’s cheaper.
Los Gallos presents nightly two-hour shows at 20:15 and 22:30 (€35 ticket includes a drink, €3/person discount with this book in 2014 — but limited to two admissions, arrive 30 minutes early for best seats, noisy bar but no food served, Plaza de la Santa Cruz 11, tel. 954-216-981, www.tablaolosgallos.com, owners José and Blanca promise goose bumps).
Tablao El Arenal has arguably more professional performers and a classier setting for its show — but dinner customers get the preferred seating, and waiters are working throughout the performance (€38 ticket includes a drink, €60 includes tapas, €72 includes dinner, 1.5-hour shows at 20:00 and 22:00, near bullring at Calle Rodó 7, tel. 954-216-492, www.tablaoelarenal.com).
El Patio Sevillano is more of a variety show, with flamenco as well as other forms of song and dance. While hotels may recommend this, they’re just working for kickbacks. I like the others much better.

Impromptu Flamenco in Bars
Spirited flamenco singing still erupts spontaneously in bars throughout the old town after midnight — but you need to know where to look. Ask a local for the latest.
La Carbonería Bar, the sangria equivalent of a beer garden, is a few blocks north of the Barrio Santa Cruz. It’s a sprawling place with a variety of rooms leading to a big, open, tented area filled with young locals, casual guitar strummers, and nearly nightly flamenco music from about 22:30 to 24:00. Located just a few blocks from most of my recommended hotels, this is worth finding if you’re not quite ready to end the day (no cover, €2.50 sangria, daily 20:00-3:00 in the morning; near Plaza Santa María — find Hotel Fernando III, the side alley Céspedes dead-ends at Levies, head left to Levies 18, unsigned door; tel. 954-214-460).

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In Sevilla, There’s Always a Parade

Sevilla loves a religious procession — carrying statues of saints from favorite churches through the streets on big floats. People from other towns go through their lives never marching. But in Sevilla, these parades are huge.

When you meet a Spaniard, it’s common to ask them which football team they support. Here in Sevilla, you also ask which Virgin Mary they favor. The top two in town are La Virgin de la Macarena and La Esperanza de Triana. On Thursday during Holy Week, it’s a battle royale of the Madonnas, as Sevilla’s two favorite virgins are both processing through the streets at the same time.

I bumped into a street-clogging procession that was actually a practice parade for the kids who carry the float. It’s an honor to be one of the 15 or so young people who stand shoulder to shoulder under the float, shuffling slowly through town.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

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Sevilla — Getting Up to Date with the Best City in Southern Spain

 

The best stop in southern Spain is Sevilla. The city is a delight from a sightseeing, eating, and live-music point of view. And it’s always changing. After a few days in town with the help of excellent local guides, I am right up to date for the 2014 edition of our Rick Steves’ Spain guidebook. Here are a few updates in advance:

Recently Sevilla unveiled a giant, mostly wooden canopy in an attempt to revitalize the formerly nondescript Plaza de la Encarnación. The gigantic, undulating canopy of five waffle-patterned, mushroom-shaped, hundred-foot-tall structures provides shade, a gazebo for performances, and a traditional market hall. It’s nicknamed “The Mushroom,” and, while the market is busy each morning, locals still don’t quite know what to make of the avant-garde structure. (It’s pretty lifeless in the afternoon and evening.) One ramp leads down to the ancient Roman street level (where a museum displays Roman ruins found during the building process). From the basement, a €1.30 elevator takes you up to a terrace for a commanding city view and a big walking loop. Doing this scenic stroll, you feel like you’re walking a roller-coaster track without the train. While “The Mushroom” is a bit newsy, I found it not worth the time or trouble. (You can get a fine view for free from the rooftop bar of the EME Catedral Hotel, across the street from the cathedral.)

All over Europe, cameras are photographing cars entering central zones where only taxis, locals, and those with hotel reservations are allowed. With hard economic times, traffic cops are enforcing these laws mercilessly with stiff fines. In Sevilla, the hotels recently softened the situation. Scary as the signs are, those with hotel reservations in the off-limits zone can ignore them: Drive to your hotel, park where they tell you, and — as long as your hotel registers your license-plate number within 48 hours — you are legal. But in general, driving in city centers throughout Europe is getting tricky…and potentially very expensive.

Sevilla loves its religious processions. Any time of year, you’re likely to bump into a giant crowd following the slowly plodding entourage of a float with a blaring marching band.

The Church of the Savior (Iglesia del Salvador), Sevilla’s second-biggest church after its cathedral, has a chapel featuring the city’s second most important procession statue. The Christ of the Passion chapel is filled with the sadness of Jesus’ crucifixion. It features a gripping 1619 statue of Christ carrying the cross to his death. For centuries, the faithful have come here to pray, and then kiss Jesus’ heel (up the stairs behind the altar). Like many churches in southern Spain, it’s built upon the site of a ruined mosque. In the courtyard, which served both houses of worship, you can really feel the presence of the earlier mosque. The former minaret is now the bell tower, and the arches, which date from the days of the mosque, are half-underground. The surviving mosque, now underground, functions today as part of the church’s crypt.

The heel of Sevilla’s beloved Christ of the Passion is kissed all day long throughout the year by pilgrims and local Catholics alike.

Seeing the faces of statues chiseled out throughout my travels, it seems our inability to tolerate each other has been a challenge for a long long time. Seeing this statue, once again I thought that “Can’t we just get along?” is a universal plea.

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Barnacles and Bratwurst at the End of Europe

If you look at the map, it’s clear that Cape Sagres — at the southwest tip of Portugal —is also the geographical end of Europe. It’s understandable that in the days before Magellan and Vasco da Gama, this was considered the end of the world. Today travelers come here just to find the end of the road. The wives of fishermen sell hearty sweaters, knit while their men are at sea. And a small food stand advertises the” last Bratwurst before America.”

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It’s Nice When the Chef Caught the Fish

Paulo at Restaurant O Lourenco in Salema, Portugal, knows his fish. Either he bought it himself at the fish auction in the next town, or he actually caught it himself. After lunch, he took me into the locker for a peek at dinner.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

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Salema—My Favorite Stretch of Portugal’s Algarve

For several years, I’ve been wanting to return to the Algarve (southern Portugal), my favorite stretch of Iberian coastline. I’m generally in Iberia in April, when the beach towns are pretty dead, so I don’t bother. Being here in June this year makes a huge difference — it’s lively, warm, and a great place to relax (as I wind up an intense two-month trip). And even after all this time, my favorite Algarve town remains Salema.

The economic hard times seem to be hitting both Spain and Portugal very hard. I can see the sadness in the eyes of the people. A “tough times future” seems to be the diagnosis, and there’s no promising cure. The character of the idyllic fishing towns (like Salema) is changing. Fewer people are fishing, and government policies (regulation and taxation) have tightened up, causing the little widows to not bother renting their rooms. Gourmet restaurants and boutique accommodations are appearing in spite of the tough times, as fishing towns are becoming the playgrounds of the gated communities and golf clubs of the jet-setting international crowd, who stay on the hilltops a bit inland. Still, the children of the old fisherman — at least, the ones who don’t go to the big city in search of economic promise — continue to cook up the fish and man the weather-beaten fort. And Salema remains a delightful stop on any Iberian itinerary.

I hope you enjoy these images from my recent visit.

Salema, the Back Door jewel of the Algarve, comes with a delightful sandy beach overlooked by characteristic restaurants and the tranquil strum of a steady surf

In beach resorts across the Mediterranean, competition is stiff. The fish is fresh, the vegetables are crunchy, and in the case of Portugal…the wine is green.

When I first came to Salema, in the late 1970s, I was driving a minibus of tourists. We’d park at the base of Salema’s “street of the fishermen” (Rua Pescador) and find rooms (quartos) in private homes for a few bucks each. Now the fishermen do more sitting and gazing at the sea than fishing (the business is done in bigger fish markets nearby, in Sagres and Lagos). The women have been terrorized out of running their small businesses by stricter (and necessary, as Southern Europe learns to pay its taxes) government regulations. There are fewer old-school, shoestring-budget backpackers to keep them in business anyway. Still, while it feels different, the street looks exactly the same.

My friend John, from England, has run Pension Mare for three decades. I’ve been sending my readers there just about from the start, and we are like a team. I love his place. He lives in Bath and flew down to hang out with me as I updated my chapter on Salema. He was a great resource as I put the pieces of this town’s social puzzle together. This same weekend, John sold Pension Mare. The new owner promises to run it the same for my readers… but it’s a bit of a sad event for me.

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Kidnapped and Gagged in Rome—Then Rescued

The most horrible thing happened to me while doing my work in Rome. An evil man pretending to be me did all sorts of wicked things. It’s a long story…kind of a nightmare. But thankfully, three young and courageous girls — forces for cuisine justice — rescued me, and everything turned out OK. This video tells the saga of a day in Rome I’ll never forget.

Watch more of The Food Police’s adventures at http://foodpolice.it. Learn more about the producers at www.cross-pollinate.com and http://orvietoorbust.com.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

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In Milano, The 1% Salutes the 99% with a Massive Middle Finger

Milano may be Italy’s no-nonsense business and banking capital, but locals still have a sense of humor. Here’s a new listing (from my upcoming Rick Steves’ Italy guidebook for 2014) about a new monument that has quickly become a fixture:

Piazza degli Affari and a towering middle finger mark the center of Milano’s financial district. The bold Fascist buildings in the neighborhood were built in the 1930s under Mussolini. Italy’s major stock exchange, the Borsa, faces the square. Stand in the center, appreciate the modern take on ancient aesthetics (you’re standing atop the city’s ancient Roman theater), and find the stern statues representing various labors and occupations, and celebrating the nobility of workers—typical whistle-while-you-work Fascist themes. Then, notice the equally bold modern statue in the center. After a 2009 contest to find the most appropriate sculpture to grace the financial district, this was the winner. Of course, Italy has its financial problems, and a similar sentiment that powers the Occupy Movement in the USA rumbles in this society as well. Here we see how “the 99 percent” feel when they stand before the symbol of corporate power in Italy. (Notice how the finger is oriented–it’s the 1 percent, and not the 99 percent, that’s flipping the bird.) The 36-foot-tall, Carrara marble digit was made by Maurizio Cattelan, the most famous—or, at least, most controversial—Italian sculptor of our age. L.O.V.E., as the statue is entitled, was temporary at first. But locals liked it, and, by popular demand, it’s now permanent.

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