Seville – La Feria de Belén

As Christmas is almost upon us I decided that instead of finishing up our Granada adventures I’m going to start to blog about more immediate matters. We’ve been living in Seville for a few weeks now so I’m going to show you the preparations for the festivities in this lovely city.

The first sign of Christmas approaching was the opening of the Feria de Belén or the Nativity Scene Market on the 30^th November next to the Cathedral of Seville. As it is a very typical Spanish custom  I was right there to document everything for my blog.

In Spain the Nativity Scene or belén is very important and it seems like the town of Seville took it to a whole other level. You can have your own little one in your home, you can see them displayed in many shop windows and courtyards that are open for the public to see it. There is even a Ruta de Belén or a Nativity Scene Route which you can find on the official website of Seville which leads you through the biggest and nicest belén displays.

You can find everything you need to make your own belén here in the Market. 

Not only the ‘usual suspects’ such as Mary, Joseph, the Baby and the Three Kings but also many other complementary details to enrich your display. 

Animals in all shapes and sizes (for obvious reasons the donkey is a huge favourite), food, meat, fruit, vegetables, people of the village, everything is here!

You can build a whole village for yourself from the variety of buildings on offer.

There are ponds, gardens, rivers with flowing water, moving windmills, everything you can possibly think of.

There’s even a ‘paint your own’ section.

There are many different themes to choose from, too.

My favourite is this colourful, slightly unusual belén stall. These tiny belénes are from South America and the ingenuity of them makes everybody smile.