Tag Archives: feria

feria horses and hoes

28 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by in culture, dance, fiestas, food & drink, photos, sevilla, spain

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Every year I try to get over to the April spring fair (Feria de abril) at least once to take photos of the horses during the afternoon. This year I also saw what appear to be Feria hoes!

It wasn’t a great day for taking pics, all overcast and grey. But at least it wasn’t raining and so I spent a couple of hours walking around the site after lunch.

When I first moved to Sevilla I was much more interested in Feria and would join the crowds for the opening night “alumbrao” when they lit up the gateway at midnight on the Monday and then stay until the wee hours. Although it’s pretty much an exclusive event for those who can afford their own private caseta, I would always get plenty of invitations so I could avoid the (quite awful) barnlike public ones. But frankly, since I don’t dance sevillanas and don’t enjoy milling about talking trash with a bunch of privileged posers, I eventually stopped going, except to see the horses.

There are more Feria photos – including some of horses for Beth! – over here.

I also quite like this collage of colourful ruffles I made…

[click on image to enlarge]

easyjet az

06 Wednesday Apr 2011

Posted by in blogging, computers, culture, fiestas, friends, internet, iphone, sevilla, social media, spam, twitter, work

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Yesterday evening I was thrilled when I got an email from Annie Manson saying that while flying from Geneva to Málaga she’d seen me mentioned and quoted in the EasyJet’s April Inflight magazine, and congratulating me on such a great PR coup. At first I was totally flummoxed as I had no idea why I would be in there, then when I saw the article (about the Feria in Sevilla) written by Derek Workman, I remembered meeting Derek for tapas a while back and spending a pleasant leisurely lunchtime chatting about Sevilla stuff. He was in town doing research for this article as EasyJet was about to launch a new London-Sevilla route in April. So that was quite exciting! If you want to read the article (which starts on page 50) you’ll have to register, which is a bit of a pain but only takes a minute.

Anyhow, after a few emails back and forth to Annie I got into bed with my iPhone to read a few last tweets and emails before sleeping and saw that one of my favourite tapas bars was mentioned in an article by Shaney Hudson, an Australian travel writer now living in Holland who was here on a research visit last autumn. Then I saw that my tapas tours got a personal recommendation from Shaney in her Essential Guide to Sevilla (!!!). How cool is that?

All of which has me thinking this morning about all the amazing connections I’ve made, and continue to make, via my blogs, Twitter and – okay I admit it – even Facebook.  I’ve made friends and biz contacts, and have also found work, as a result of not only sitting in front of my laptop (or with iPhone in hand) several hours a day, but also by going out to meet many of these people when they are in town. Which of course I love as one of my favourite things to do is show people “my Sevilla” and especially take them out for tapas. So anyone who still thinks social media is silly is, well, silly.  😉

 

 

málaga feria, etc…

17 Tuesday Aug 2010

Posted by in fiestas, holidays, Malaga, spain, trips

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It was madness I tell you!

But it really had to be done. I couldn’t come to Málaga during Feria and not take part at least a little. So I wandered over to the centre of town around midday yesterday and took in the festivities. Málaga has a different way of celebrating their Feria. They do set up a big fairground, but this normally doesn’t get going until sometime after about 9.30 pm … so during the day the fair actually takes place in town. Boy, does it ever. Hoards of people were milling about, music was blasting and blaring … I took it all in for as long as I could stand to before deciding I had to get the hell out of there. And then I remembered a recently opened bar called La Reserva del Pastor that Victoria had told me about, so I headed over there hoping it wouldn’t be like many of the bars in the centre with their special “Feria menus”. And happily it wasn’t. In fact it was an oasis of calm in the madness that is Feria in Málaga. So I dragged my weary self up onto a bar stool, introduced same weary self to the owners and then was thoroughly and most pleasantly spoiled beyond belief…

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