It can only be our good luck that brought us back to this café this morning. We had stopped in here two days ago for a beer. We were the only ones in the bar and the owner was busy carving jamon so we got to study all the pictures on the walls, pictures of Semana Santa celebrations over the years. Each of the picture frames had holy cards stuffed in the bottom of the frames. We surmised the owner carried one of the floats, either the Virgin or Christ in a scene from the Passion, for his parish, the Virgin of Candelaria. Amid the pomp she is depicted with an anchor as she protects the men on the ships that work out of Sevilla.
The owner gave us two holy cards of the Virgin and we asked him where we could go to buy some more “estampas” (the word they use for what we used to call holy cards). He thought for a while and then suggested a shop about fifteen minutes away. We found it and waited to talk to the clerk while he helped some teenagers who appeared to be buying school uniforms. The store was filled with religious items but also hernia belts and trusses. We put it together that this is where the guys who carry the floats in the annual Semana Santa processions get their gear. A costalero shop!
This morning we headed out in what we thought was a new area of the city. We had café y tostada con tomate y aciete in a place that was completely obsessed with bullfighting. And as is our usual pattern, we wandered some more and stopped for a second cup. We look for tipico places, the ones that are popular with locals, not tourists. They serve their coffee in small glasses rather than cups and you often stand at the bar. We were coming from a new direction when we spotted this crowded café. We had already ordered dos con leche when we put it together that we were in the same café, Bar La Candelaria.