Perched on the west bank

Perched on the west bank of the broad River Guadalquivir, their original barrio of Triana looks across its murky waters at old Seville. From its riverside cafes you look out at the splendours of the gold tower, the white walls of the Maestranza bull ring, the palm lined Walk Cristóbal Colón and a city skyline crowned by the twelfth century minaret turned cathedral bell tower, the Giralda,. For several hundred years this was a part of Seville’ docklands. It was famous for his artisans. Their reputation spread, in the wake of the Spanish galleons, across the New World. Fifty years, or a century ago, this would also have been the place to look for the raw substance of flamenco. Thóphile Gautier, the French Romantic, came across a group of gypsies camped out beside a bubbling cauldron. ‘Beside this impoverished heart was seated a gypsie with her hook nosed, tanned and bronze profile, naked to the waist, a proof that she was completely devoid of coquetry…This state of nudity is nor uncommon, and shocks no one, ’he said.
In the 1950s, flamenco was still part of his everyday life. “In the afternoon one could hear the tune of bulerias and tangos ( two flamenco styles or palos) coming from a cluster of houses. A baptism, a wedding, a request for a woman’s hand in marriage, a son returned from military service, a woman who had just won the lottery… any event set the tribe into action, Triana still had melody,’ recalls Ricardo Pachón, a flamenco producer who grew up there.
From the book ‘Ghosts of Spain’ By Giles Tremet