Feria

La Feria de Abril, one of Sevilla's most important fiestas, is basically a week long carnival plus a celebration of flamenco culture, eating, and drinking. Feria officially begins at midnight on Monday with the Alumbrado (lighting of the main gate, the lamps in the street, and the lights of the casetas) and runs six days, ending on the following Sunday with a huge display of fireworks.



The "farigrounds" (for lack of a better word) are located in Los Remedios, a barrio on the far side of the river, and are totally covered in rows of casetas, individual decorated tents which are temporarily built there. When they say "caseta," they literally do mean "little house." Besides the bar and the tables and chairs for eating, they are decorated extravagantly (well, some more than others). Some of them have wallpaper, paintings, or gilded mirrors. Most of the casetas are privately owned and you need an invitation or some kind of connections to get in, but there are public casetas as well. Some of these casetas belong to families, some to groups of friends, clubs, trade associations, and even political parties and local barrios (neighborhoods).



All day long, but especially from around nine at night until six or seven the following morning, at first in the streets and later only within each caseta, people are dancing Sevillanas (the traditional flamenco-esque folk dance), eating tapas, and drinking the traditional drink of Feria, rebujito, which is a mix of manzanilla (sherry, usually from Jerez) and 7Up.


One of my favorite parts of Feria was watching all of the horses and carriages full of people dressed in traditional flamenco costumes. All of the colors are brilliant and almost overwhelming. Another favorite was seeing everything lit up at night during the Alumbrado and afterwards. Sorry I don't have any photos to post yet, but I am working on it.