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| Just beautiful! |
A little bit of history, not much, skip if you wish, later I’ll give you websites if you are interested you can go to, or not, all about choice… The Feria started as an event for farmers and ranchers to sell their animals. The tents acted as meeting places for people to do business and comfortably entertain prospective clients with food and drink. It morphed into other business people, political parties, service clubs, well-to-do folks, well, anyone that wanted to entertain prospective buyers of all sorts. That’s why it is invitation only and some say today that this is part of the tight knit community Sevilla is, some say it’s snobbery, usually those without invitations.
There is a wait list and expensive fee to pay to “own” one. There are public tents but they get very crowded very fast and the food and drink is not of the quality you get in the private ones.
Ferias in other cities in Andalusia are more open to the public but Sevilla has maintained tradition. Anyway on with our day of it.
The horse drawn carriage drew up and Ryan, Angela, and us sat inside the open top, Ivan sat with the driver.
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| Hola Abel! |
Information about our ride thanks to Ivan: The carriage type is a Mirlor, Milord in English; our driver’s name is Abel; horse’s name is Jara. She is a lovely white and grey speckled mare, nine years old, is three months pregnant (gestation for horses is 21 months - wow, didn’t know that), she is used for riding as well as carriage so she wasn’t perhaps as smooth as those that are only used in the city but did well.
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| Hola Jara! |
Took a lovely drive through Maria Louisa Park. Seeing Sevilla through the open “convertible” top is the best way to see the architecture of the city. You can easily look up, directly at without windows and really get a feel for the historical buildings this city is so full of. Then it started to rain, so the driver stopped and put the hood up which only partially covered Ryan and Angela, they had to lean over to get under cover, sorry you two! Arrived at the “caseta city” and took a quick turn through some of the streets, there are thirteen, connecting the tents. The usual lanterns strung across the streets were in tatters due to the rain, they are made of paper.
We were the first to arrive so we could get good seats and did.
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| Ryan, Pepe, Angela, part of Bruce and look at the "tent" |
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| Bar room in the tent, looks like a regular bar! |
Now it’s about watching the flamenco dress parade, for me anyway.
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| Not your usual picture of flamenco dresses and no horses except next picture... |
Pepe joined us, then Ivan’s friend Maria and her friend Suzanna who is visiting from Sweden. We had met Maria before because she has a couple of flats for rent we had seen a couple of years ago but she wasn’t comfortable with pets. Very nice lady and it was good to see her again, we were an International group!
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| Zorro?! You can see the wet yellow sand. |
We had drinks and food, of course. The caseta’s are catered by restaurants in town who close up their restaurants and work 24x7 in the caseta’s. We arrived at about one o’clock and they will be open with partying people until the very wee hours of the morning, all week! Reminds me of Stampede in Calgary but I think here in Sevilla it’s even more crazy. Music, dancing, singing and clapping to the rhythm start around six pm and the party goes from there.
I did quite a bit of reading from other expat’s blogs because there is no way I was going to squeeze into a proper dress, so found out alternatives. I wore a fringed shaw, held together with a brooch (I read that’s important to show you know the “convention, not tied together” and big, for me, hoop earrings, striped blouse. Guess I did okay because Pepe commented how Feria I looked, he said it was perfect, Thank you Pepe! No one carries a purse to mar the image of the dress, there are pockets sewn into the ruffled skirts, clever! I did have to carry mine, not enough pockets to carry everything, would have looked like a stuffed chipmunk, in the coat pockets.
It rained off and on while we visited and the yellow sand, typical for here, got quite boggy. Women lifted their skirts and there weren’t many high heels visible, mostly like this type http://www.spanishoponline.com/gaimo-susan-wedge-espadrilles.html#.VxONy84_vVo coloured to match their dresses.
Mothers and daughters wore the same dresses and flowers in their hair.
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| Mom and daughter - twins! |
You’ll see by the pictures, that’s another Feria necessity, I tried to go somewhat authentic without looking totally ridiculous, a flower would have on me. For the men and boys, suit jackets are pretty much “necessary” and older men wear a tie. Ivan wore a suit and tie, he said his mom would kill him if he didn’t, she’s traditional.
I would compare this event to a fancy dress ball where debutantes come out for their season to find husbands and men look for possible wives in the monied class mostly. Romances start at Feria frequently, and it makes sense doesn’t it, young ladies are dressed in their best colourful clothing and young men in theirs. There is dancing and singing, yes, it is like the cotillion style ball.
From what I’ve read the dressing up is done for a few reasons. For Sevillianos it is a party, so why not, it shows respect to the host, it is tradition. For Expats if they don flamenco dresses it allows them to be part of the festivities, many have lived here for years and speak perfect Spanish so why not invest the time, money and effort to enjoy it more. See the link to Sunshine and Siestas blog below.
Our carriage arrived for us to depart and as we were walking to it a lone, unoccupied horse came running down the road, reins flying! Our driver jumped out and caught it, Police were there, they started walking it but stopped to calm it down because it was scared. I don’t know (again, like with the nude fellow) what happened but it was a lady's horse, side saddle which only ladies ride, of course. Much speculation on our part and we hope the rider wasn’t hurt but the horse certainly could have been poor thing.
So, upshot, would I go again, I don’t think so, we missed the display of horse riders and women in dress on the back, and carriages with them in due to the weather but that’s about all really. Loved the day, weather could have been better but you can’t change that so no sense griping about it. Some expats go every year with their dresses and really enjoy, I’m not one of those, but today was special day to experience another ages old Andalusian culture event and it was wonderful!
Wednesday in Feria week is a holiday for many store owners so they can attend. Thursday we were out and about and many flamenco dresses in evidence. Just saw two little girls dressed up and flouncing about joyfully in their dresses. Bruce commented you don’t see two dresses the same, even when we were at the fair. We think many are custom made, so pretty, every one, I think in a former life I must have liked flounces. When the women walk they move so wonderfully and showcase the colours. I’m really enjoying this fashion show, so different from anything I’ve seen before. Adding the flowers on the hair, combs, shawls and bangles and you get the complete picture, so many dresses are polka dotted and I’ve researched but don’t know why.
That was our day at Feria! It was great!
Thanks to Ivan for organizing and inviting us to his parent's group caseta, Ryan and Angela for coming in the carriage, making it more fun, Pepe for showing us what is the usual tipple (manzanilla wine and soda) not to my taste.
Cheers, Bev, Bruce and Lexi Cat
Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I've liked it more and more every year as I understand the traditions and know more people. Was a socia at a large military tentt, but felt it was too stiff and informal!
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for the mention :)