The flamenco triangle is laid out to the south of the Andalusian capital itself, next to the River Guadalquivir in its rich dryfarming lands and olive groves. Flamenco is a way of singing, a language, a feeling, a deep expression of thousands of years of intermixed and mutually-enriching cultures: Arab, gipsy... It sums up Andalusia’s national feeling as an assimilation of all the cultures that have peopled its land in the past. Flamenco and the Andalusian sense of identity go hand in hand.

The Flamenco Route begins in Alcalá de Guadaira, at only 15 kilometres from the Andalusian capital. Its name comes from the enormous Castillo-Alcazar that dominates the town and the river that crosses it but it also known as “Alcalá de los panaderos” (Alcalá of the Breadmakers) due to the Mudejar mills that used to grind the wheat to make the fabulous and widely recognised bread. Next to the castle, the Ermita de Nuestra Señora del Águila serves as a lookout over the city. The curious dedication of this hermitage to an “Águila” (eagle) stems from the legend that the image of the Virgin Mary, hidden in the castle, was discovered by an eagle.

The district of San Miguel has been home to famous flamenco singers like Manolito María or Tío José de Paula, who developed between them a local way of singing called “Soléa de Alcalá. Every summer the Peña Tio José de Paula, the singer’s fanclub, organises a highly popular Flamenco festival.

Los Palacios y Villafranca is a town alongside the motorway running from Seville to Jerez and Cádiz. This Seville town is well known as producer of the fine Mistela wine; at the beginning of every autumn it hosts the Mistela Flamenco Festival, when the Peña del

Pozo de las Penas is well worth dropping into.

Not far off Lebrija is the hometown of the singer “El Lebrijano”, who draws from both the Flamenco tradition and North African Andalusí music.

The gipsy town Utrera is capital of the most serious and deeply moving variety of flamenco, called “cante jondo”. Witness the sagas of singers it has produced like Bambino, Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera, Perrate and Enrique Montoya, all descendants of famous singing families within the town. Utrera pays homage to them in the form of many monuments and festivities that bedeck its streets and tiny squares. It is still a rich source of new flamenco talent like Rafael de Utrera, Manolito de Angustias and Tomás de Perrate.

Flamenco festivals are held on summer nights, the most famous being the Potaje Gitano de Utrera, held on the last Saturdays of June and the flamenco festival of Mostachón in November, which always attracts some of the stars of flamenco singing.

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